


Only Us

by KingRiles



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Body Horror, Corrupt Homeworld Government, F/F, Gun Violence, Human AU, Hurt/Comfort, Language, Manipulation, Torture, Weapons, Zombies, based on the last of us, long oneshot, side character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-26 20:41:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15670905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingRiles/pseuds/KingRiles
Summary: Lapis, a solitary smuggler in a violent age domineered by the walking dead, is ordered to carry out a charge from Homeworld to take Peridot to a secret lab across the country. When she realizes she's made a terrible mistake, she races against the clock to make a dangerous rescue.





	Only Us

**Author's Note:**

> A huge, huge thank you to NateC7 for reading & helping me proof this work!

Lapis’ heart battered perilously against the confines of her rib cage, like a trapped sparrow struggling desperately to break free from the metal walls of an undersized prison. The excess of arms and weaponized objects in her bag dug uncomfortably into her spine. She waited on bated breath for the Homeworld guard to pass her by.

The blunt end of a makeshift shiv was clutched in her sweating palm, patient, menacing. Lethal.

She struggled to hear the sharp footfalls of the guard as they drew nearer over the rampaging of her own heartbeat, and only made her move when the dark armor moved into her peripherals. She jumped out of hiding, lean arms wrapping forcefully around the large guard’s shoulders as she fiercely punctured his throat.

A slick warmth sputtered over Lapis’ hands and she swallowed thickly as she tucked the guard’s body into a remote, shadowy corner. A brief once-over gave Lapis a fully loaded, single-barrel shotgun that had been strapped to the guard’s back. She was suddenly very grateful that she had caught him before he had her.

She gripped the firearm between trembling, red-coated hands, palming her worn pistol as she stole into the Homeworld facility.

A band of Crystal Gems had found her shortly after leaving Peridot at the Centennia Homeworld laboratory. She had only just strayed from the research campus, heart sitting heavily in her chest, when they happened upon her with the daunt of hungry mountain lions and the misgiving of frightened hares. Lapis had been immediately set on edge, assuming the offensive as she turned her freshly loaded pistol barrel to them.

She only lowered it when, after a frantic explanation of what Homeworld had not informed Lapis of, they revealed to her that she had just made a dark and grave mistake in leaving Peridot in the hands of Homeworld. She had worked with the ragtag group of revolutionists to scale the wall of the campus, dropping down, unseen, onto the dying grass within before darting from shadow to shadow to the infirmary building where she made her move inside.

For as long as Lapis had known her, Peridot had been the ideology of a cure. She represented the redemption of humanity. Homeworld craved to investigate the strange phenomenon exhibited by her, as she had been bitten by an infected, albeit remained wholly unaffected by the ordinarily swift onset of cluster cordyceps.

What they had refrained from telling her was that Peridot would not survive said scientific investigation.

Homeworld was not working to cure the cluster cordyceps at all. They were working to discover what this strange cause of immunity was, and to destroy its genetic components before it could be spread to any other living being.  They were going to annihilate any chance humanity had against the infected.

Lapis darted down the dim, empty halls of the laboratory, the shotgun held close to her chest as voices bayed between empty foyers. She promptly ducked into a strip of darkness when two guards emerged from a separate hallway, sinking into the shadows to avoid being seen by them.

Once they had passed her by and were an adequate distance away, Lapis slithered up to her feet and pressed through the doorway they had left ajar, unlocking the safety on the weapon clutched in her palms and letting out a shaky breath. Her eyes stung with regret.

She had to find Peridot.

Or she’d die trying.

 

 

_“No.”_

_“Now, Lapis Lazuli--”_

_“I said **no**. You can find somebody else to do it.”_

_“Unfortunately, it was specifically in our instructions to locate one Lapis Lazuli Kaile’a. And you are, fortunately, said Lapis Lazuli. And I cannot return to Homeworld without executing the Diamond’s orders.”_

_A murky scowl befell Lapis’ features as she regarded the Homeworld militia elites glowering before her. They couldn’t be serious? As far as she had been concerned, her affiliation with Homeworld had been severed months prior. The only reason that she had survived the initial fallout with the authoritative coalition had been the misfortune of the winter season, slowing soldier pursuits and rendering tracking useless as snow rose to cover Lapis’ fleeing boot prints._

_Why, of all smugglers, miscreants, and traders would Homeworld send Aquamarine and Topaz deliberately to her and demand that she carry out a Homeworld charge? Let alone one that involved smuggling a living, breathing human being across numerous states to some destination in Centennia she knew no odds nor ends about?_

_“And why should I?” Lapis shot back, arms crossing stubbornly over her binded chest. She tried to ignore how she could feel her heart hammering against the skin. “Homeworld doesn’t have anything to do with me. Not anymore. Not after M--” Lapis stopped short, the word catching in her throat with the intent to choke. Practically coughing, Lapis forced out the words that left her tongue bittered by resentment.  “ **Not** after Malachite.”_

_Aquamarine looked pensive. “Malachite was an unfortunate loss of contraband stock, but Homeworld has considered granting you penance for your misdeeds if you can take on this new responsibility.”_

_“Can’t they send someone more navigable?” Challenged Lapis with fresh, icy vitality. “There have to be dozens of soldiers at Homeworld with army vehicles that could get her there in days.”_

_Lapis felt a smidge of bitter satisfaction worm its way into her chest when Aquamarine had the decency to look strained.  “We don’t want this getting **out** ,” Aquamarine touted lowly. “Only ourselves and other members of Homeworld’s **elite** militia force are aware that **she** -” she gestured flippantly to the young woman in question, “even exists.”_

_Lapis grimaced. What did Aquamarine mean? Judging by the sharp wariness in the commander’s petulant voice, this Peridot character could have been argued to be dangerous. Lapis followed Aquamarine’s gesture up towards the stranger, who was beaming out the dusty, cracked windows like it was the first time she had ever seen the afternoon. Lapis wryly wondered if it was. “I don’t understand.”_

_“Great stars, must I really spell it out for you?” Aquamarine bemoaned, gloved hands clenching with disdain. Lapis found herself being drawn down by the elite’s surprisingly forceful hand, until their faces were suspended with only inches bridging the space between them. She was even more waspish up close._

_“ **She** is an incredibly valuable individual,” the elite said, her spitting tone disguised beneath an incredulous whisper. “Peridot Castillo has been bitten--”_

_“What?!” Lapis’ hands instantly flew to the makeshift holster strapped to her thigh with the intent of immediately eradicating the tainted body in the room, but Topaz’s powerful hand stopped her at the elbow._

_“If you would let me **finish** ,” Aquamarine seethed, evidently disturbed by Lapis’ instinctive reaction to an infected person. Warily, Lapis snatched her arm free, brushing her cold thumb over the crook of her elbow. Topaz’s vice would leave enough stress in the skin to blossom into a bruise. “Peridot was bitten two weeks ago after betraying **deliberate** orders, but rather than put her down for her misconduct and the resulting infection... officials were stunned by her sheer lack of response to the cluster cordyceps infection.”_

_Lapis blinked. It was difficult to preserve the callousness of her expression as her eyes sought out the affected in question. Or, rather, the unaffected._

_“We could not return her to the advanced boarding institute from which she came for fear of creating… an upset,” Aquamarine continued balefully. “She has been maintained and sheltered within the upstate quarantine zone since just weeks after the cordyceps breakout, so her knowledge of the outside world is, as you Americans would call, next to none.”_

_Lapis’ eyes had not removed from Peridot. She was trying to decipher the blonde that hovered near the side of the room, looking utterly fascinated by the remains of a decrepit, colourless loveseat. Suspicion crept into Lapis with the sickening wile of an adder. “You’re lying.”_

_Aquamarine’s brows rose dangerously. “Pardon?”_

_“Show me the bite,” Lapis ordered, straightening and tilting her head over at Peridot. “Prove that she’s not being infected.”_

_Aquamarine spat out a disgruntled scoff, but pointed her cigarette holder demandingly at Peridot. “You, show her your bite. Apparently it takes visuals to get what you want around here.”_

_Peridot startled from where she was had been pulling threads from the with torn vinyl skin of the loveseat, standing to attention as her eyes darted down to her arm. “But I was specifically instructed not to--”_

_“The **bite** , Peridot.”_

_Peridot nodded with a determined huff, fingers uneasily clenching the fabric of her long sleeved shirt and pulling it back._

_Lapis had seen bites before, but she had never stuck around (or let them survive) long enough to see it advance past the first few hours of corruption. Peeking out from beneath the cuff of the overshirt, embedded into the skin above Peridot’s wrist, was the telltale bite wound of an infected; but it was... dry. A scab film had crusted over the flesh, yet showed no signs of fading, especially for a wound that was supposedly two weeks of age. The sight made her stomach flip with uncertainty._

_Still, Lapis was unconvinced. And she was ready to argue as such. “No, I’m not doing this. What if she does begin to show symptoms and turns infected? I’m not putting myself at risk for some **thing** and some **one** I don’t care for.”_

_Aquamarine’s face contorted darkly for a heartbeat, but the unnerving semblance was quickly lifted, replaced instead by a dangerous smirk forged by mock obliviousness. “Topaz, would you remind me of something for just a moment?” She pondered aloud, tapping her cigarette holder inquisitively to her chin as she meandered fluidly back towards her built escort. “I mean, my memory is perfect, but our orders were to deliver this young woman directly to Lapis Lazuli. If these deliberate instructions could not be abided by Lapis Lazuli, we are to incarcerate her and return her to Homeworld’s facility upstate.”_

_Topaz remained silent as Aquamarine coyly leaned against her bodyguard’s hip. “I’m just not sure.” Aquamarine stopped flicking her cigarette holder and directed its sharp metal tip at Lapis. “Did they specify that we had to bring her… alive?”_

_A cold, dead wash of fear thrilled up Lapis’ spine, exposing her flesh with goosebumps and willing the small hairs at the nape of her neck to bristle._

_“You know,” Aquamarine grinned, and the sight made Lapis ill to see. “I don’t think they did!”_

_“ **Fine**.”_

_“What was that?”_

_“I said, **fine,** ” Lapis snapped, reaching forward and snatching her only keepsake back from Topaz. Her fingers sunk so tightly into the worn nylon straps that white blisters bleached her knuckles, abating only when she slugged the bag over her shoulder with a look of forced disinterest. “I’ll take her to Centennia.”_

_Aquamarine’s eyelids dropped to half-mast, her glittering eyes portraying the satisfaction of triumph via manipulation, albeit a lethal one. “That’s the spirit. Really, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”_

_Lapis wanted to sock Aquamarine in the jaw with the brunt of her pistol, but the looming impression of Aquamarine’s baleful, powerful bodyguard was enough of a tranquilizer to discourage that temptation. “Sure,” she grunted testily instead, choosing to stuff her hands into her jacket pockets, fingers twining deeply into the fabric. It had the same constricting effect on her shivering hands as a straitjacket would on a body._

_“Now, if you have any concerns, keep them to yourself,” Aquamarine began as she turned tail and marched in league with Topaz back from the sodden doorway from whence she came. “This must remain **hush hush** , as you’ve been told. If this manages to leak out or you fail. .” She settled Lapis with an expectant simper. “I imagine you can comprehend what ramifications will become you.”_

_That same glacial apprehension trickled up Lapis’ skin. She had been at the mercy of Homeworld before and knew well what consequences would come for her should something go awry. “Yes.”_

_“ **Great.** Topaz, let’s be on our way.”_

_“Wh-- what?” Lapis’ head shot up, eyes blown huge with astonishment. “But you’ve told me so little? I hardly know anything about what I’m meant to do or how I’ll--”_

_“ **What** did I say about those little **concerns** of yours?” Aquamarine threw Lapis an incurious look up and over the shoulder. “She is your responsibility now, and I encourage that you see fit that this does **not** end in the same manner that Malachite did.”_

_Lapis’ teeth tucked into the flesh of her inner lip as Topaz forced open the creaking door, waiting for Aquamarine to coyly stride beneath her guard before turning and making her last regards. “And don’t worry. We will be watching you two very closely along the way.”_

_The rotted door swung heavily shut, the archaic locks settling with a diffident click that left the air within the damp room pregnant with tension. Lapis stared forsakenly over her shoulder at her new human equivalent of a drug parcel that she was meant to smuggle halfway across the country. An exacting frustration billowed from the bottom of Lapis’ shaking chest, grinding at her lips with a growl as she agitatedly collided a wayward fist with the crumbling brick wall._

_Dusty motes swirled from the abrupt collision, and for a frightening moment, Lapis believed to have felt a stony tremor resonate within the brick construct. Fortunately, the meek wall remained in tact. Her relief was short-lived and minute, however, as she turned to regard her newest source of lament._

_Peridot had been hovering, speculative, beyond Lapis, seemingly scrutinizing her and her erratic antics. Lapis’ brows dove into a deep, sharp furrow when a small, pale hand shot out, fingers extended in what was meant to be a conventional manner._

_“Peridot Castillo,” she clipped, her shot, nasally voice already a scourge upon Lapis’ ears as she turned away from Peridot and started towards the only other exit that wouldn’t leave them closely following behind the elites._

_“Come on,” Lapis growled brusquely, making her way towards the crooked windowsill and prying her way between the broken shafts and onto the groaning panel of the fire escape. She managed to descend a single level before snapping her gaze stiffly back up to the window to find Peridot gaping down at her. “Well?”_

_“Are we really leaving already?”_

_“I don’t know about you,” Lapis grunted as she tested the escape ladder’s rickety support frame with her foot, “but I would rather put as much distance between myself and those two as possible. I’m not about to be caught and detained for hanging around.” She continued down the next level, before sliding down the rungs and dropping with a small hiss onto the ground below. She’d been a little too high to drop comfortably, and her throbbing calves made sure to remind her of that offhanded miscalculation._

_Lapis carefully studied their surroundings, ensuring that there were no creatures-- running, stumbling, or crawling-- closing in on them. The afternoon sun glinted on the cracked glass walls of the old downtown district skyscrapers, many of which had collapsed in on themselves. Some seemed to be bound together only by capricious vines and tendrils, having long since lost the battle with mother nature._

_When the coast seemed decently clear she returned her eyes to the top of the ladder, lip curling with displeasure to not see Peridot already halfway down the stupid thing. Instead, Peridot’s voice carried raucously down from above. “...Lazuli?”_

_“ **What?** ” Lapis clunked her forehead against the metal rung of one of the last ladder steps, staring heatedly up the bars to see Peridot’s head poking over the metal railing. Her face read pride, but her eyes read misgiving._

_“I don’t know how to descend this thing.”_

_Lapis stared incredulously up at Peridot. All that time spent in Homeworld’s private boarding institution, and Peridot had never once in her life used a ladder? Wasn’t the entire militia program based on creating tactful, agile, and pliant soldiers? Climbing was definitely an asset that came in handy; at least, it did to Lapis as means of escaping thieves, infected, and soldiers alike. “Seriously?”_

_“...Did I sound insincere?”_

**Clunk.**

_Lapis hit her forehead on the bar again._

 

 

Guards seemed to adorn every inch of the campus, leaving no corridor unchecked for longer than three minutes at a time. Lapis had learned to anticipate a presence before it arrived long ago, a useful, perceptive skill she intended to utilize to the fullest of her capabilities right then.

She still felt incredibly vulnerable as a singular force marching through one of Homeworld’s most protected, if not _the_ most protected, facility this side of the country. But there was a storm in her chest that spurred her forward, throwing the primal terrors dwelling deep inside her to the wind for as long as she could stand.

Lapis had to find her before it was too late. She _had_ to. And if that meant throwing herself before the cruel, tyrannical hand of Homeworld, then so be it.

The caustic sound of an old cart being wheeled across the linoleum ward floor caused Lapis’ head to snap up, quickly diving into the next room over to get closer to the source of the sound.

Was that a cart of tools? She thought she could hear the distinctive clinking of tiny metallic tools trembling as the wheels tossed in an out of smooth circulation. More importantly, was it heading towards where Peridot was being hidden? The chances of Homeworld focusing on anybody _other_ than Peridot right now was rather slim, so Lapis chanced it, and ducked into an open foyer room that the cart had just been rolled out of.

What she failed to notice, however, was the yawning entryway behind her, where a set of guards had startled to find an intruder so deep into the facility.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” The larger soldier bellowed as he took deliberate, dangerous steps forward, which yielded the attention of the other guards in the vicinity as all eyes fixated on Lapis, standing silently at the heart of the foyer.

The acute _sh-shuck_ of Lapis pumping her weapon filled the space that was as eerie and as soundless as the catacomb it was soon to become.

She fired her shotgun into the advancing guard’s chest and sent the halls into chaos.

 

 

_Lapis learned quickly that Peridot thought that nature’s eminent take-over of the planet was a marvel instead of an inconvenience. She also learned that she would ask her questions about literally anything they came across._

_“Oh my st-- what is **this!** ”_

_“Peridot!” Lapis’ voice hissed through the dusk as she spun around, sending mossy water flying up from the mire as Peridot bolted ramrod straight and hid whatever she’d found behind her back like a child caught red-handed in the rations jar. “Be **quiet**. You’ll attract infected.”_

_“I thought the barbed wires and high walls meant that this portion of the city was quarantined against them,” Peridot reported back posthaste, and Lapis swallowed her growing exasperation because, admittedly, Peridot was right._

_“It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be careful,” Lapis huffed, taking a leaping stride through the sooty waters and drawing herself up onto a grass pocket. The local lake had risen up to engulf the southeastern quarter of the city after the thunderstorm two evenings ago, and unluckily, the most discreet route out of the city passed through the flooded district._

_Lapis glanced through the corners of her eyes at Peridot, shoulders sinking with quiet defeat when she hadn’t moved from her spot in the_ water, _and was making bizarre, almost coo-like noises at whatever she’d found. “Peridot, what do you have?”_

_“Wh-- Nothing!”_

_Lapis crossed her arms. “Show me.”_

_Peridot’s lips pursed as she slowly and hesitantly pulled her arms out from behind her and revealed to Lapis what she’d been_ balking _about earlier: a large, mottled frog that took both of Peridot’s small hands to support it._

_“Why did you pick up a frog?”_

_“Is that what this creature is called?” Peridot smiled, flipping the amphibian around and staring curiously into its beady little eyes. The frog croaked, its throat billowing. This alarmed Peridot, causing her to fluster, scream, and drop the frog into the shallow muddy water at their feet, in that order. Lapis chose not to actively emote, favoring the thought that apathy would eventually neutralize Peridot’s whimsical behavior. Even if the last week had shown no signs of that being a theory that would actually uphold._

_Lapis chose to flick dirty droplets from the curvature of her cheek, eyelids hung lazily as she turned and began to march along_ drier _earth. “You really don’t know what a frog is?”_

 _“...I don’t know anything that I wasn’t taught about while in the quarantine zone,” Peridot grumbled as she stepped up and out of the muck and after her escort. “Our resources were incredibly limited, and are growing even more limited. Raids by the Crystal Gems were common_ faire _; rumor speculated that they stole the entire biology and zoology preparatory libraries; undoubtedly to completely slander Homeworld’s chances at curing this_ cordycep _corruption by stealing from our sites of information. How are we meant to save the population if these Crystal Clods keep messing up our things?”_

_Lapis’ lips pursed as she slid idly over a blunt, misshapen tangle of warped and rusted scrap metal. The Crystal Gems wasn’t a name that Lapis liked to ponder often. More often than not they had interfered in her life instead of supposedly make it better; she held a begrudging neutrality with the revolutionary group since their formation years ago._

_For some time, there had been a deep loathing for the coup, most notably after they stormed and demolished the Malachite project. The thought of the world-shattering invasion put her on edge, effectively tuning out Peridot’s incessant rambling about strict protocols and government disease control_ centres _as she stared off into the dusk of a deepening twilight._

_For ruining Malachite, Lapis wanted to hate the Crystal Gems. But, in a completely contrasting set of mind, she was at least thankful that they had._

_“Lazuli? Hey, Lazuli, are you even listening to me?”_

_Lapis could feel her eyes rolling into the back of her skull. “No. I’m not.”_

_“Well, why not?” The genuine offense in Peridot’s voice made Lapis want to retch._

_“Because I don’t care,” Lapis decided to counter, kicking a loose clod of earth across the bed of weeds and dandelions that they were stomping over. “I don’t care about Homeworld or how the Crystal Gems are ripping it apart from the ground up.” She turned a cold glare onto Peridot. “And, frankly, I don’t care about anything you’re prattling about right now, because every time one of us speaks, it makes the chances of unfriendly soldiers finding us a lot more likely.”_

_“ **Hey,** I didn’t ask to be stuck out here **either** ,” Peridot retorted. “And discussing political matters was always encouraged at the institute. Especially if it meant disparaging the Crystal Gems!”_

_“Well, you aren’t at the institute anymore,” Lapis muttered, ready to be done with the discourse as she pressed on. Sadly, Peridot wasn’t._

_“What do you **want** from me?” She dared, assuming a stance that was probably meant to be challenging, with hands poised over her hips -- but fell short of looking even provocative. “I’ve been nothing but civil with you for a week and what do I get in return?” She gestured out to Lapis with both hands and a sputter. “ **This!** I don’t know what’s caused you to become so high and angsty but I’m getting sick of it!”_

_Lapis’ eyes darkened with skepticism, but Peridot continued with a desperate frown. “So tell me. What do you **want** from me?”_

_“Honestly?” Lapis stopped with her boot pressed against the groaning iron of a crushed gate, turning around to regard Peridot with cool, disinterested eyes. “I want you to leave.”_

_“Wh-- Leave?” Peridot stopped, fingers flying backward to clench at the straps of her backpack with undisguised alarm. “But-- I don’t know my own way to_ Centennia _. I-- it’s a strike to my dignity to admit as such, but frankly, I don’t even know my way around anywhere! How will I survive?”_

_“You’ve managed to live two weeks with a bite wound from an infected. Already that gives you a leg up on the rest of us trying to survive without being dropped with something we don’t want, in the middle of a world that’s already been damaged beyond repair.”_

_There was a specific coldness in Lapis’ chest as she watched Peridot register the depth in her biting words. Her mouth opened to try to_ respond, _but always sealed tensely back shut._

_Lapis’ fingers dug lightly into the skin of her arms as the silence stretched wanly out between them, awaiting a response from the typically articulate and mouthy person. She was slightly smug to see a visible hurt in Peridot’s eyes. Then suddenly Peridot’s crestfallen scowl remodeled itself into a determined grimace. “Okay,” she said, turning her back to Lapis and tramping away._

_Lapis watched Peridot trek defiantly across the muddy leaf molds staining the city grounds without so much as a glance_ backwards _. Lapis asserted her conscience with an austere sobriety as Peridot ducked out of sight behind a skeletal heap of abandoned army vehicles. Curiously, a gleam of remorse chipped away at Lapis’ heart for what she’d done. Her brow twitched, bemused at herself._

 _Technically, this was not Peridot’s fault. It had been Homeworld that dictated that she be escorted successfully to the_ Centennia _base; Lapis had been the luckless soul with a notable reputation for being able to, for the most part, run a successful contraband scheme. Or, she had been able to, once._

 _Aquamarine had warned that they would be under close scrutinization. How accurate that the militia commander_ word’s _were, Lapis wasn’t keen to find out. If Homeworld learned of her blunt dismissal of their smuggling job, it was as good as the end for her. But she had run away from Homeworld once; she was certain that she could do it again._

_Lapis’ brow settled into a firm line as she turned back and leaned against a mossy road barrier that divided her from a sea of mangled abandoned cars and overturned trucks. All this traveling had just been for naught now; she could worm her way back across the state to her central base near the sea. No, she figured with a frown, that wouldn’t be a wise place to retreat back to hide; Homeworld would be on her in a heartbeat._

_She just had to keep moving. Just like before, like always: trapped, even if she was on the run._

_She had barely made it over the road barrier and was beginning to navigate the profusion of outmoded vehicles when a shrill cry shook the air. It sent any birds in the vicinity shooting up into the sky, callously baying with apprehension as Lapis stifled, ducking low behind a truck wheel and glaring out from behind._

_A second shriek followed, growing in volume as the chaotic sounds of boots sludging through wet earth reached Lapis’ ears. Immediately going on the defensive, she slowly crawled to the other side of the truck, peering over its hood, hands fastened cautiously over her holster._

_Beyond the roofs of cars that Lapis had managed to pass so far, she saw a wild shock of yellow hair bobbing through the floodwaters._

_And beyond her, a wounded, wailing pack of infected. Lots of them._

_“Shit,” Lapis growled, ripping her pistol out of its holster and ducking from car to car until she was by the road barrier, watching Peridot panic and try to scale the hood of_ an semi-truck _that was one, overturned, and two, way too large for her to even consider climbing over._

 _“Peridot!” Lapis hissed, frantically checking her weapon for rounds and slamming the cartridge shut with a_ satisfied _rattle. “Over here!”_

_Peridot’s huge, rheumy eyes quickly latched onto Lapis and she sprinted over like the smuggler was her very last lifeline. “Oh thank the stars!” She wheezed, slamming into a stop before she crashed into the road barrier. She scrambled over it with no small amount of relief, collapsing on her back on the other side. “I just-- turned the corner of a building and-- they were there! All of them! Oh my stars, are they going to ki-”_

_“They will if you keep **blathering** ,” scathed Lapis, raising her firearm and directing it towards the crowd of infected struggling through the waters. Peridot’s retreat towards the dry street had not gone unnoticed by the few up _front _, it seemed; and where one cluster-infect went, the others would blindly follow._

 _She didn’t have enough ammunition to take down more than ten. She didn’t even feel comfortable enough using five bullets, let alone twenty to mow down the horde that_ were _beginning to make haste towards the two women. She had an extra handgun in her bag, she knew, but she couldn’t remember the last time she had checked it for ammo._

_Without warning one of the infected up front began to barrel towards them, mouth dangling, eerily parted as an ungodly howl split the air. Acting on impulse, Lapis quickly made her shot, effectively dispatching the infected as it sagged into the marsh. A chain reaction seemed to rampage through the mob all at once, the startling sound causing them all to advance on them even faster._

_“Fuck,” Lapis spat, arm stiff with tension as she unloaded a few more rounds into the fastest infected as Peridot gawked on the ground beside her, palms pressed over her ears as the pistol exploded with sound._

_Lapis’ heart dropped down into her feet when she pulled the trigger and the gun clicked blandly. She was already out of ammo. “Come on!” She hissed through gritted teeth, grabbing onto the collar of Peridot’s jacket and hauling her up onto her feet as she began to weasel her way through the maze of vehicles. “We gotta go, **now!** ”_

_Peridot yelped with alarm when she was jolted up, something she’d been nervously fidgeting_ with in _her hands dropping to the ground with an unceremonious crack. Lapis chose to ignore her startled cry of ‘my tape recorder!’ as she instead chose to focus on saving their lives._

_She dove and jumped and twisted through the sea of scrap, refusing to stop until Peridot had essentially become dead weight, wheezing and begging for her to pause. Lapis hesitantly let go of Peridot’s jacket, hands quickly going to mechanically reload her handgun as Peridot let out an unpleasant groan and leaned against the side of a suburban cabin. “They stopped chasing us minutes ago.”_

_“Would you rather I have let you get eaten?” Lapis challenged bluntly, clipping her pistol shut and nursing it carefully in her palm as the distant whimpering of frustrated infected carried through the otherwise still air._

_A look of confliction settled onto Peridot’s face as she stubbornly hugged her arms close, eyes angling low to the ground. “No.”_

_Lapis let out a long, forlorn breath at that, noticing for the first time how tremendously fast her heart had been racing. She hadn’t encountered infected in a long time. Let alone, in a foreign city zone meant to be quarantined. If they were able to break in, even with militia guards patrolling the city wall perimeters, it was bad news for them._

_Her eyes roamed back to Peridot, a secret sense of inquiry giving her pause. That same whit of guilt returned to her, and with a thick breath she cleared her throat and asked, “are you okay?”_

_Peridot startled to be addressed directly. Perhaps she was even startled that Lapis was asking not for her to keep up or stop playing with the bugs, but asking if she was okay. Her green eyes sparked with_ epiphany _, and a huge, huge smile split Peridot’s face from ear to ear._

 _Lapis_ coloured _and turned away._

_“We better get moving. If infected have broken into the city, we need to be out before it’s dark."_

 

 

Pandemonium ensued across the laboratory as soldiers clamored to obtain intel on what had transpired, and the identity of the estranged suspect presently showering the left-wing foyer with bullets. It was safe to assume that Lapis not remained in the same hall for long, operatively shearing down a legion of six Homeworld soldiers before withdrawing into hiding.

Having submerged herself into the deep, unsettling shadow of a dilapidated stairwell, Lapis guardedly minded her surroundings. She had managed to dive into a byway passage and remove the atrocious heat from her heels, but the soldiers were not dissuaded in the slightest as the manic, thunderous crashing of heavy boots on tile floors shook the air.

It hadn’t been clever to announce her presence to the whole of Homeworld, not when she had only just entered the facility. She wouldn’t have made it out of being discovered any other way, Lapis rationalized with herself, though skepticism formed a hard rock in the pit of her stomach as she rolled the barrel of the shotgun over her clammy fingers. A particularly intense voice gave her cause to flinch backward into the wall as a member of the guard, she assumed a leading figure, barked the vehement order for the mercenaries to disperse and scout the premises.

Disseminated soldiers meant that it would be easier for Lapis to dispatch them individually. However, it also meant that it was dramatically thinning the solitary she required to prowl, unchallenged, through the lab. Her jaw ached with discontent, but she promptly repudiated the sentiment; she had accepted whatever reverberations would flog her when she found the resolve to return for Peridot.

She was cleaved hastily away from her mental preoccupation when the door to the side hall clattered open, and the distinctive sound of two persistent feet stomping in alerted Lapis to the fact that she was no longer alone. The shotgun turned in her palms as she crawled forward, inch by inch, until she was hovering at the wall flanking the first steps of the stairway.

Lapis wasn’t sure how many more rounds were left in the device, she realized with a pang of apprehension, as she held the firearm close to her side. If she tried to check the magazine now for rounds, the guard would surely hear if an empty shell ejected from the cartridge.

But if she moved quickly enough, she might be able to ram the stock into the guard and down him while he was disoriented.

A dry tongue moved to frisk over even drier lips as Lapis leaned painstakingly around the wall she was sheltered behind, spotting her opponent in dark armor garments, wielding a rifle held at shoulder height. Green LED light projected from an attachment on the nozzle. Suddenly a second set of footsteps clocked in at the doorway, and Lapis recoiled back into the darkness and pulled the shotgun in towards her abdomen as the two guards began to speak.

“Figures the only day we actually have something to guard, we end up with a crazy _bitch_ shooting up the place,” a gravelly, masculine voice growled as the second guard stormed deeper into the passageway. “Fucking Crystal Gems.”

“We don’t know if she is a Crystal Gem, sir,” the other soldier objected, which only elicited a dissatisfied grunt from his superior. “None of the lieutenants who spotted her reported seeing a star.”

“None of the lieutenants managed to _catch_ her, either,” the older guard snapped, and Lapis held onto her breath as she heard something clicking, followed by the softer sound of a safety switch unlocking. Did he know she was in there with them?

“She couldn’t have gone far,” the younger of the two was stating as the footsteps advanced towards Lapis’ hiding spot, stopping just shy of being able to see Lapis over the rim of the stairway railing. Lapis, however, could see the guard, watching with sharp, narrowed eyes as the light from their rifle tips glistened against his opaque helmet visor. “If she were smart, she would have left as soon as she fired those gunshots. I think the surgeons all the way in the right wing must have heard them.”

Before Lapis was able to stop herself, she sucked in a sharp breath. Instantly the guards were on red alert, weapons swinging up and fixing austerely by the nose as Lapis registered this new information: the surgeons were in the right wing. _Peridot_ was in the right wing.

Her next revelation was that the second guard had joined the first just beyond her. She willed herself to forget how to breathe for a few minutes, just until they passed her remote location by. She had no such luck.

It was the first soldier who had entered who took the step forward, pivoting in preparation to shine his light into her concealed corner, and Lapis had no choice but to emerge from the shadows with the precision of a hawk and smash the heel of the shotgun into the back of his legs. The rifle skidded out of the soldier’s hands as he dove earthward from the attack, and Lapis moved quickly to kick off the helmet and bash the stock of the rifle into his temple, knocking him unconscious in under three rapidfire heartbeats.

Lapis’ dark eyes swung back to his older cohort, breath choking at the back of her mouth as a barrage of bullets sprayed out from the nozzle of his rifle, missing her by a leaf’s depth as she plunged inward, ramming the butt of the shotgun into the man’s abdomen. A pained grunt tumbled from his lips as his aim faltered, taking a step back before Lapis reached up and parried the rifle.

They twisted, gnashed, and bucked, landing solid hits on one another until Lapis was thrust backwards by the swinging heel of a combat boot. A stinging ache spread across her stomach as she skidded backwards, fumbling and collapsing onto her behind as the soldier advanced, rifle held low, glinting dangerously in the darkness.

“You’re a long way from Shomee,” he chuckled darkly, glaring down the barrel of his rifle. Lapis stared defiantly up the same barrel, face a bleak glower as the icy tip of the muzzle dug under her chin and forced her head up. “Crystal _scum_.”

“What makes you so sure I’m a Crystal Gem?” Lapis growled, suppressing the urge to wince when she could feel the cold metal of the rifle pressing into her shaking throat.

“Who else would be dense enough to infiltrate a Homeworld facility?” The guard grunted.

Lapis’ hands moved slowly, meticulously, towards the firearm that she had dropped during her fall as he continued. “Especially on the one day where we actually have incentive to keep offenders like _yourself_ out?”

She gripped the gun, eyes never leaving the guard’s. “Then be dumb enough to be caught with her _back_ plastered to the _wall?_ ”

Lapis drew the weapon carefully into her lap as the Homeworld soldier gave a ruthless chuckle, thwacking her cheek with the barrel of the rifle. “So tell _me,_ then, _girl_ , how does it feel to already have failed whatever errand your precious _Gems_ sent you on, _hmm?”_ When Lapis remained stubbornly silent, her head was forcefully tossed to the side again, this time flicking harshly against her cheekbones. “ **Speak**.”

Lapis worked her jaw, skin stinging where the blunt edge had scraped, before slowly bringing her grave, jaded eyes back to the guard. “I’ve felt _worse._ ”

Lapis’ finger wrapped around the trigger and fired directly into the man’s shoulder. Something dark and wet sprayed from the wound as the soldier dropped his rifle and collapsed to his knees, a heavily guarded hand rushing up to clutch at the gashed flesh.

Then came a series of voices demanding consolidation, and Lapis made haste to dart up to her feet and escape from the room before soldiers came in and found her standing over two defeated guards.

There was a quiet, sickening thrill in all of the mayhem she was instigating here, yet none rung quite as powerfully as the internal consent that, perhaps… if Homeworld was going to treat her like a Crystal Gem, she might as well be one.

And she wasn’t about to give up on the one she had returned for.

 

 

_Peridot had been the one to spot the house when they had crossed state borders and entered into Bluegrass territory. It was tucked into a remote forest grove littered with ferns that shuddered and whispered pliantly on the breeze, its framework steadfast against nature’s oppressive advances._

_It was almost a nostalgic sight to see. The house resembled the type one might expect to find in a suburban residential area, not one you might find dead in the heart of the wilderness. Nevertheless, Lapis was keen to enter and rest for the evening, as night had fallen a rough hour prior and her limbs were beginning to quake from exhaustion._

_Lapis stared through the cracked windows, wavy and yellowed by time, and into the dark house beyond as Peridot struggled with the jammed_ door knob _. A cool wind brushed against the sensitive skin on Lapis’ cheek from where she had collided hard with the ground earlier that evening trying to escape from a group of bandits who had chased Lapis and Peridot away from a gas station they had tried to loot for any sort of salvageable goods. They had been drying their supply faster than either of them had anticipated._

_“Cloddy knob,” Lapis heard Peridot grumbling to herself as the thin stick she had been trying to pry into the lock with snapped under the force. With tired eyes, Peridot glanced over at Lapis. “You wouldn’t happen to have something small and thin and preferably metallic on you, would you?”_

_“No,” Lapis grimaced, dropping her arms to her sides and moving over to join Peridot at the door. “I had a bobby pin a few months ago, but... I must have dropped it doing something.”_

_Peridot’s features pinched. “What’s a bobby pin?”_

_Lapis shook her head. “Nevermind. Do you think a shiv will work?”_

_Peridot’s eyes went_ large _as Lapis slipped off her backpack, unearthing a sharpened shiv with duct tape wrapped around one end to provide a safe handle to grasp._

 _“It_ should _,” Peridot furrowed her brows, fingernails digging warily into the top of her palms as she eyed Lapis through the corner of her gaze, prudent. “Are you. . ?”_

_Lapis was silent a moment, mulling over what sort of consequences might befall her for providing Peridot with a weapon of all things, but decided she would rather sleep indoors than outdoors tonight. She grabbed Peridot’s wrist quietly and pressed the wrapped end of the shiv into the palm, leaning back to watch Peridot quietly begin to jostle the blade between the door and the rattling knob._

_Lapis was focused on the distant warbling of an owl when Peridot’s grunt of satisfaction gained her attention, but just as she looked back she found Peridot trying to_ jemmy _the knob with the shiv wedged sharply in between the door and the device._

_“Try to loosen it,” Lapis suggested, voice sallow with fatigue as Peridot nodded and did as such. Her fingers were pale as she continued to contend with the knob’s plaque, face tight with concentration before a resounding click and a clatter filled the air._

_“A-ha!” Peridot bent down low and grabbed onto the doorknob she had managed to successfully detach from the door, which had begun to swing open without the force of the lock to keep it in place. “There! Here, let me-- oh. .” Her voice sank as they both turned back to where the_ shiv _had been, finding it cracked along the blade. With the way the crack ran, it was liable to shatter should one of them even lay a finger on it._

_Lapis only sighed quietly, accepting the loss and ghosting past Peridot, passing languidly into the house. It smelled of dust and mildly of mildew, and time had performed an irreversible deed to what Lapis assumed had once been a clement home. At the door she was immediately greeted by a stairwell that led to a second floor, flanked by a dark hallway that presumably led deeper into the residence._

_Peridot slid in after her, fingers combing through the thick, upturned hairs clinging to the back of her neck. “I’m sorry about your shiv,” she offered, glancing up at Lapis through clouded lens frames. “I probably should have exercised a bit more reserve trying to get that stupid thing open.”_

_“It’s okay,” Lapis murmured, nodding her head dismissively at Peridot. “I can always make another.”_

_Peridot shrugged, still looking quite culpable, but regardless decided to take the time to follow in Lapis’ suit and took in their surroundings with interest._

_Lapis scouted the kitchen first, eyes brightening slightly when she spotted a well-kempt sofa sitting crookedly across from an old island counter. She was relieved to find a small number of canned goods still tucked shyly away into the cabinets. The naturally chary half of her wanted to flee, wondering what had caused the former residents to leave something as valuable as food behind, but the other half of her that craved a decent rest and at least half of a decent meal spoke louder than its counterpart._

_Lapis thoughtfully rolled a can of corn kernels in her palm as she perused the other goods she had looted, satisfied to find a few soup cans and, by some fortune, a fruit cocktail. She quickly moved them into her bag, decided to organize later and find Peridot now so they could have something to abate the aching in their stomachs._

_When a brief once-over of the visible lower half of the chalky, chipped house warranted no sight of Peridot, Lapis stole up the steps, her bag sagging under the welcomed weight of foodstuffs. “Peridot?” She tried as she hovered at the top step, eyes narrowing dubiously on a shaft of pale moonlight crept in through a hole in the ceiling. The late summer breeze carried in on a draft, and Lapis aimlessly followed the source to an open window tucked into a room that had to have belonged to a young girl._

_Right now, though, its only inhabitant was Peridot, who was manically thumbing through a series of paperback novels. Lapis cleared her throat._

_“ **Nyagh!** ” Peridot startled, tossing the article back onto the ground with shock as she whirled around to face her perpetrator, but visibly relaxed when she saw it was Lapis in the doorway and not some wayward assailant. “Oh, stars, um-- hi. I was just looking.”_

_“We really shouldn’t snoop in other people’s things,” Lapis commented, eyeing the pile of discarded belongings left behind many, many years ago by someone who couldn’t have been older than thirteen. “I found some full cans in the cupboards in the kitchen.”_

_Peridot met her gaze, looking bemused. “But you just said we shouldn’t snoop in other people’s things.”_

_“This is different,” Lapis shrugged as she knelt down across from Peridot, leaning back on her calves as she dug out the loot she had found downstairs. “This is so we can survive. No one else has needed this stuff for a long time.”_

_She cupped the can of fruit cocktail thoughtfully in her hand, a_ meagre _thread of excitement overcoming her as she made for her pocket knife and moved to privy open the lid. She stopped quickly when she noticed that the lid was slightly swollen and rounded, which automatically warranted that it must have spoiled years ago. Canned fruit never lasted long. With a despondent sigh, she set it down across from her and settled for the minestrone instead._

_As she tore open the soup can, she glanced up to see Peridot regarding her with an uncannily soft expression. She stiffened, back prickling with malaise as Peridot quickly averted her gaze elsewhere, lips pursed in a tight line as she tucked her nose into her own can of lentils. “I remembered those novels from the library at the institute,” she noted absently, causing Lapis to turn over with a quirked brow._

_“Which ones?”_

_Peridot smirked briefly. “Only one of the greatest fictional universes to ever be created by mankind: Camp Pining Hearts. I’m shocked that they didn’t immediately discard the material since fiction isn’t held in a very high regard by the government. It must have been such a simpler time when they created these things; imagine, the biggest issue in your life_ being _a race across the river on a shoe-like raft of wood!”_

_Lapis stirred the thick soup in her hand with a finger, wiping it over her lips thoughtfully as Peridot spoke. She had come to accept that Peridot’s wordy nature was going to remain as long as she had the breath to speak with, but as time wore on and they continued traveling together, it had become more tolerable. Dare she admit it, she had begun to enjoy listening to something other than the destructive thoughts trapped within her own mind. It was a fresh perspective to regard the world from, even if it came from an artless source._

_“I remember a little from before all this happened,” she admitted quietly, thinking aloud more than she was initiating conversation. “I was only a girl when the city closed in on itself and we learned that the cordyceps clusters had been unleashed.”_

_“You remember that?” Peridot inquired, eyes large. Lapis duly noted that the other woman had moved an inch closer. “I don’t really remember… anything from before. I’ve been with Homeworld for as long as I can remember. . for all I know, I may as well have been born into the program.”_

_“How old were you?” Lapis found herself asking, setting down her soup and bringing her knees up to her chest. “When the clusters began to infect people.”_

_Peridot frowned into her soup can, poking haplessly at a_ bead _of rice that had floated to the top of the_ saucy _mixture. “_. . _I’m often told that I was three. It’s said that mother fled to Homeworld as soon as it formed, and I don’t even remember her. Looking at it from outside the walls of Homeworld, for the first time, it’s… a little disheartening.”_

_Lapis felt her heart pull taut for Peridot. Then she felt surprised at herself for feeling that way. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, choosing to lower her eyes from Peridot’s downcast expression and settle them onto her meal._

_Peridot shrugged weakly, taking another mouthful of her soup. “Don’t be. This is all I’ve ever known, anyways.”_

_Lapis supposed that Peridot was lucky to not have nostalgia to rock her_ mentality _every time she smelled something that drew her back to_ childhood, _or see something that reminded her of the blithe years before the world crumpled in on itself. But, then again... Peridot also had nothing fond to look back on. She only knew the world for the hell that it was now._

 _“I was six when my family broke the news to me,” Lapis admitted after a few moments of prolonged quiet, staring into the muted ingredients floating at the top of the soup can because she couldn’t will herself to look up into Peridot’s watery eyes. “About the infected. I didn’t understand it at_ first, _and didn’t for a long time. Not until I saw one for the first time.”_

_She saw Peridot flinch from her peripherals but continued nonetheless. “My dad turned. None of us knew what to do, except for. .” Her eyes fell to her bag, where she knew her weapons were stashed hidden away within. “We didn’t even know how he had gotten bit. It turned out he had been taking smuggling jobs with Homeworld and had been bitten on his way back to our hideout.”_

_“We didn’t last long after that. Homeworld believed he was in hiding, and dove in like vultures on the hideout. I never saw any of my other family again after that; I was put on a different vehicle out of Ocean Town.”_

_It had been so long since then that Lapis was unable to feel any sorrow for what she had lost. She was still unsure of how to feel about it now, sixteen years later, after so much had happened to her. And it looked as if Peridot felt similarly, shyly setting down her can and scooting another inch closer. The space between them was gradually shrinking._

_“I… suppose I can say that I’m sorry to hear that,” Peridot mumbled, dipping her head remorsefully. “It must be hard.”_

_Lapis’ brow knitted mournfully. “Sadly, it gets easier with time.”_

_“Oh.”_

_Silence befell them once more, this time thick with fellow feeling as they finished their meals. Peridot offered to go discard the cans and returned later with a bottle clasped between her fingers, finding Lapis stretched out over the carpeted floor, eyes staring thoughtlessly up into the cracked white ceiling._

_“I found this down in those cupboards you mentioned,” Peridot smiled, turning the bottle outwards to reveal its contents to Lapis, who blinked with astonishment and leaned up on her elbows. “Is that honey?”_

_“If I’ve been taught how to read correctly, I’d say so,” she nodded, walking deeper into the bedroom and leaning precariously on the edge of the ancient mattress on the bed. Lapis raised herself up onto her behind and watched Peridot briefly struggle with the cap on the bottle, before flicking it off with a satisfied snicker and gazing inside, before reeling back, nose scrunched. “It’s awfully sweet.”_

_“It’s supposed to be,” Lapis revealed as she nimbly pushed herself up onto the balls of her feet and strode over, settling on the bed beside Peridot. She looked as awkward and as startled as Lapis felt closing the distance between them so dramatically for the second time that night, but she wanted to see what Peridot had found. “There was no honey at Homeworld?”_

_“There was little of anything aside from sorry excuses for wheat squares they dared refer to as bread and the occasional vegetable. So… is it meant to be this sticky?” Peridot delicately held the bottle in one hand, the other (which she had so wisely decided to stick in through the top) awkwardly contorting as she struggled with her honey-covered fingers. “Is it used as a paste?”_

_“It wouldn’t be a very good one,” Lapis admitted, taking the bottle from Peridot before she could do any more damage to herself and gazing curiously down at it. “It was used in a lot of foods. You can eat it separately, too. I should have something. . .”_

_Lapis left Peridot at the bed to dig through her things, managing to excavate two spoons before returning to Peridot, who had moved another foot away from the_ bottle, _and was hesitantly sniffing at her fingertips. She was caught off-guard with her tongue stuck out between her teeth when Lapis dropped back down, moving the second spoon into Peridot’s free hand._

_Peridot glanced down at the utensil. “What’s this for?”_

_“Honey, so you don’t end up covering yourself in the stuff.” Lapis’ nose scrunched amusedly as she glanced at the sticky confectionary on Peridot’s hand. “You should be able to just, lick that off. Don’t let me stop you.”_

_Peridot spluttered nonsense in response, hiding the honeyed hand behind her back. Lapis couldn’t help but notice that her cheeks had turned a few shades darker, visible even in the dim-lit room. “I wasn’t going to lick it off.”_

_“I doubt that this place has any sort of running water to rinse it off with,” Lapis intoned smartly, before relaxing further back onto the bed’s creaking comforter. It had been so long since Lapis had been on a mattress that hadn’t been slashed to bits and had its contents salvaged for other intensive purposes. She ended up jumping up entirely, crossing her legs comfortably over one another now after shucking her shoes._

_Eagerly, she dug out a spoonful of honey from the bottle, regarding the viscous substance curiously as it glistened in what little light was streaming in through the filmy window. She could feel Peridot’s curious eyes on her as she tucked it between her lips, caught off-guard by the vividly sweet flavor that she had all but forgotten._

_“Oh my god,” she muttered to herself when she realized she’d practically sucked the spoon dry within a matter of seconds. “I forgot what honey tasted like. Or-- how anything sweet tastes like, actually.”_

_Peridot scowled down at her hand, glanced at Lapis from the side, before lifting herself and settling fully on the edge of the bed. Lapis wondered if she was going to try to rub the honey off on the sheets. She was absolutely ready to kick Peridot off the mattress before it got all soiled and_ sticky, _but was relieved to see Peridot begrudgingly lick at the dribbles of gold running down her hand._

_She felt uncannily pleased to see Peridot’s face light up and quickly went to remove the rest of the substance from her hand. “This isn’t like anything I’ve ever had before!”_

_Lapis chuckled drily as she tucked her spoon back into the bottle for a fresh dollop. “Is food at Homeworld really so depressing?”_

_“Depressing would be a massive overstatement,” Peridot huffed, twisting around so that she was opposite Lapis on the mattress. She blinked once at Lapis’ stance, and with the gracelessness of a lopsided badger, she mimicked it by crossing her legs over her lap. She gestured curiously to the spare spoon next to Lapis. “Can I?”_

_Lapis_ blinked, _and handed the spare spoon over. “Sure.”_

_They emptied the whole bottle together, spoonful by spoonful. The air between them filled not with silence, but with idle, aimless chatter about whatever Peridot decided to prattle on about. Lapis realized that it was getting easier to listen._

_She also realized that Peridot’s prattling was gradually becoming more and more welcomed._

  
  
  


Whatever further damage Lapis had inflicted resonated shakily within the walls of the hospice, carried in the horrified voices of guards as they tried to make odds or ends of where she had crept off to. She had managed to sneak into what had once been a modular science classroom, tucking herself behind the long black desk as she recomposed herself.

Blood trickled down from a gash on her forehead that she had received from a soldier that had managed to take advantage of her distraction with another guard, tearing down her cheek and dribbling into her lips. The sharp, acidic taste of her own blood made her feel ill, but at the same time filled her with a newfound sense of tenacity.

Lapis’ teeth gnashed together as she wearily hobbled onto her feet, holding the shotgun close to her as she surveyed the classroom for guards. There were sounds of soldiers rushing past outside, oblivious to the invader tucked into the inconspicuous classroom beside them. With her newest sense of fortitude, she snuck towards the door to the classroom, pressing an ear to the thin walls just in time to hear heavy footsteps stop just beyond it.

Lapis’ breath was stolen away by fear as the handle on the door was turned in, and rushed to hide before she could be spotted by the Homeworld soldier stepping in to scout the premises.

Her mind jumped to the worst possible conclusion when the door was clicked mutedly shut behind the soldier. They knew she was in there. There was no way she would pry the door open without using the noisy handle, not with someone so _close._

She needed to be mindful. If she used a firearm in this small space, the other guards would undoubtedly hear and be upon her in a matter of seconds. She would have no way to escape before they ravaged her body with bullet holes.

Silent as death itself, Lapis slid her pocket knife out from her right boot, fingers wrapping firmly around the worn handle as she triggered the quick release mechanism and flipped it in her palm, ready to jump out and strike whenever the guard was negligent enough to cross her path beside the desk.

The prominent footfalls grew louder and closer, up until Lapis could feel the dusty floor shudder beneath the soldier’s weight in every step. The tip of a heavy combat boot had only just entered her peripheral vision when she struck, leg striking out to sweep the mercenary off their feet. They toppled with an unceremonious _thud_ , but did not shout in alarm. Lapis was quick to climb onto them, hastily pressing the blade of her knife to the top of their throat before they could get a word in edgewise.

“Where is she?” She hissed, a thumb pressing forcibly into the divot of their throat as the guard ceased struggling. “Where is _Peridot Castillo_?”

The guard shuddered before muttering in a slightly accented voice, “I can take you to her.”

Lapis’ thumb trembled in its place over the guard’s exposed throat, and she stared into the masked face of her assailant with blatant disbelief. “ _Liar_ . Just tell me **where** she **is**.”

“No, I can take you--”

“Stop _fucking_ lying!” Lapis seethed, pressing the bluntest edge of the blade deep into the flesh of the soldier’s throat. “If you don’t tell me right _now_ where she is being kept, your blood is going to be decorating these walls.”

She felt the guard physically _tense_ beneath her, and warily, words began to spill from beneath the tactical helmet. “You will not be able to reach her without me. You must trust me.”

“Why should I do that?” Lapis growled, digging her thumb deep into the shallow of the guard’s throat, causing them to stifle for air. “All Homeworld has _ever_ fucking done is **lie** to me. **_Use_** me. Why should I trust you?”

Lapis could feel the soldier swallow nervously, and briefly she alleviated the pressure on their trachea to allow them to make their case. “I know where she is being kept. I can take you to her.”

Lapis remained unconvinced for a minute more, poised lethally atop the guard, a knee sunken into their chest and capable of dispatching the life with nothing more than a sharp flick of her wrist. But something within her compelled her to give this individual the benefit of the doubt. It _begged_ her to. What if they really were the only hope of finding Peridot in this place? If so, why was she even agreeing to help?

Lapis’ fingers fastened around the rim of the tactical helmet over their head, and ripped it off, revealing the sweating face of Topaz beneath. “You?!”

“I will help you,” Topaz hissed, her handsome features furrowed with discomfort as she pressed her head against the cold linoleum floor. “To find her.”

Topaz’ broad brow twitched as Lapis lessened the pressure sinking into her ribs, and after a moment of dubious consideration, removed her thumb and knife from the sensitive flesh of the guard’s throat.

“ **Why?** ” Lapis snarled, demanding an answer. So what if she knew this person? She knew plenty of wicked, terrible people who would twist a knife into her spine the second she dared let her guard down. Why should she even give Topaz the right to keep seeing the light of day?

“Because-- I am the _only_ one who will help you find her,” was Topaz’ only breathless response.

Lapis gave way to her own desperation, clambering off of Topaz and quickly shouldering on her bag, trading the now-barren shotgun out for a loaded handgun. Cautiously, she sized Topaz up as the guard stumbled to her feet, leaning onto her knuckles for a moment before meeting Lapis’ decisive glare.

Topaz’ lips pulled into a taut line as she motioned for Lapis to follow as she moved meticulously over to the door, like she was stuck in the same room as a predatory creature. Lapis would have smirked with satisfaction if the situation weren’t so dire. “Keep very close to me,” Topaz murmured, “because if we are careful, no one will see you.”

“You can’t promise that,” Lapis grunted, sliding across the classroom tiles and stopping just short of the large woman. Topaz looked pensive for a moment, before returning to the spot where she had been downed and retrieving her dark, suited helmet.

“Wear this,” Topaz instructed, handing the helm over to Lapis. “It will hide you. They are looking for a woman with dusky hair. As long as they cannot see your face, you will not be attacked.”

Hesitantly, Lapis’ fingers reached out and took the armor from Topaz. It was heavier than she had anticipated, and she felt incredulous at herself as she slipped it on over her head, concealing her features from the outside world. Through the dark film of the tactical visor, she scrutinized Topaz’ unreadable face, and made the order.

“Take me to her **.** ”

  
  
  


_Autumn had begun to wrap its earliest claws around the countryside by the time Lapis and Peridot had arrived at the yawning mouth of the Ol’ Man River that divided Bluegrass from Shomee._

_They had emerged from a low-lying, shrubby treeline, marching along the waterfront until they managed to find a_ close knit _bundle of diminutive towns fringed by rotted docks. Perched at the piers sat undersized passenger boats dismantled by the unforgiving hand of time. They were searching for a way to cross, and their efforts had been fruitless thus far. Lapis had been the one to idly suggest they swim to the opposite edge, but when they_ stared _across the waters and could barely see the other forested end... that proposition was quickly slashed._

 _“This is pointless,” Lapis groaned as she stopped,_ moreso _to herself than to her shorter counterpart, leaning against a broad wooden post guarding the runaway dock_ from _the rest of the flimsy boardwalk. “There’s no way we can make it across. Unless we keep walking and find a thinner stretch of the river.”_

_“That’s, err, unlikely,” Peridot quipped, falling in at Lapis’ side with a notional tick in her brow. “If we’re in the region I think we are,_

_“When are you suddenly so knowledgeable about the Ol’ Man?”_

_“There was a geology book I managed to skim once that went over this specific river. Did you know it is the second longest river in America, approximating up to **2,350** miles?”_

_“I didn’t ask to know.”_

_“But now you do,” Peridot beamed, hovering beside Lapis as she stared thoughtfully out over the watery horizon. “...Those waters run awfully fast. Even if we did manage to find a strip narrow enough to swim, the current might take us before exhaustion does.”_

_Lapis could feel the making of a sigh ballooning in her chest as she propped herself up, palms digging into the wooden post she’d been draped across. “Even a panel of wood would be enough. Something to keep us afloat.”_

_“A wood panel?” The reluctance in Peridot’s voice was poignant. “Why don’t we utilize one of these inactive boats and travel across?”_

_Lapis lowered her brows. “How do you suppose we do that?”_

_“Simple!” trilled Peridot as she broke away, heading down the light incline and stepping out onto the decayed dock planks. “As long as there’s an applicable boat here… There!” Peridot stopped halfway down the dock, pausing by a slim, two-person motorboat that, even with adequate care, would have looked shoddy._

_Lapis found herself strolling up behind Peridot as she rambled about the marine engine strapped to the behind of the vessel. “Really, it’s the outboard motor itself that requires attention. Now, if we were to try to repair one of the boats with an internal motor, we would run into some trouble.”_

_In the back of Lapis’_ mind _she was reminded of specific smuggling routes along the Jersey River back up north. The river had been deeply engaged by the Malachite project, where crafty, underhanded engineers had managed to rejuvenate boat motors thought to have been disserviced shortly after the clusters outbreak. How they managed to do so was beyond her realm of technological comprehension. ...Maybe if Peridot was able to manipulate that technique, they might stand a chance at crossing the river before dark._

_“How are you even going to repair this one?” Lapis inquired tentatively, gesturing down at the exposed engine case and its many, many years of neglect and water damage. “It looks like it’s about to fall apart.”_

_“Looks can be one of the most deceiving things. Especially when it comes down to machinery,” Peridot simpered. “I just… need to remove this cowling.”_

_Lapis watched, clueless, as Peridot’s small hands flustered over the grimy case of the outboard device, fingers eventually grasping a dark latch in the back, and tilted the cowling up and pulled it forward and off of the motor itself. If she thought that their chances were disheartening before, to see the raw engine in all its dusty, debilitated glory was damning, at best. “That’s… really old. How do you know all this stuff, anyways?”_

_“As a member of Homeworld’s more industrial branch, it was important to my superiors that I knew how to operate a variety of technical things… such_ as, _an engine. They’re all quite similar, it’s just how the parts take one another that sets this motor apart from, say, a small car’s.” Peridot went to fiddle with a mysterious device within the tangle of steel that Lapis couldn’t name, before glancing briefly at Lapis from the side. “Do you want me to show you?”_

_“What?"_

_“You keep looking at me like I’m talking in a foreign language,” Peridot laughed. “C’mere! Let me show you what I’m doing.” Lapis floated in place for a few heartbeats, struggling to term the feeling buzzing in her chest. She tried to justify the feeling_ as _nervousness for_ being  unable _to cross the river instead of the feeling being something more… wistful that she didn’t want to name. She eventually did drop in beside Peridot, brows knitted as she tried to make sense of what Peridot’s hands were doing._

_“I worked with old engines all the time back at Homeworld. I even managed to start four cars!” Peridot beamed proudly, chest swelling. Then it sunk back in, and she gave a sheepish chuckle. “...Granted, they never survived long, **but** , the point is-- I might be able to get this thing running.” Peridot pointed out a ribbed gear. “See that?”_

_Lapis nodded._

_“It’s called the flywheel. It’s what helps build momentum as the engine accelerates!”_

_“Uh?”_

_“It’s what helps you keep a steady speed.”_

_“Got it.” Lapis narrowed her eyes, lips pulling thin as she motioned to another part of the outboard motor. “What’s that do?”_

_“Those are the cylinders!” Peridot chirped, sounding all too gleeful to be describing the components of a machine. Lapis’ lips quirked. “They’re what burn the fuel-- actually, let me…” Peridot leaned past her, tilting precariously over the edge of the pier. Lapis’ hands twitched as she withheld herself from jerking forward to prevent her charge from dropping into the water below. Peridot leaned back with a dissatisfied growl, eyes storming behind her glasses. “There’s no fuel.”_

_“Figures,” Lapis grunted, blowing the hopeful burst of air she’d been keeping in her lungs. “Raiders probably stole the gas from all these boats long before we got to them.”_

_Peridot groaned and threw herself_ backwards _, arms splaying out over the_ mouldering _wood slats. “Even if there had been some remaining fuel, after so many years the fluids would have begun to break down. Leaks and corossions in various parts of the engine as the seals broke. It would work hard against us to prevent it from starting up.”_

 _“So the idea was void_ to _begin with,” Lapis determined, bringing her knees up to her chest and looking sympathetically over at her companion. “Guess we’ll need to find another way.”_

_“It would have been so cool, though,” Peridot lamented from the floor. “To be on a boat! I’ve been in army vehicles before, but, never a boat. Or-- any large-scale body of water.”_

_“Really?” Lapis_ blinked, _but figured that it made sense. Peridot had been maintained in a massive quarantine for basically her whole life; she had almost no exposure to anything aside from what Homeworld showed her. Taking a joy ride down_ the Jersey _or into the bays were probably the last thing on their strict agenda. “...Maybe there’s some gas in the town. I saw a few shops that looked like they might’ve had stuff that looks like,” she gestured broadly to the motor, “that.”_

 _“You really think so?” Peridot asked, eyes large behind her wireframe glasses as she turned her head to gaze expectantly up at Lapis. She didn’t know **why**_ , _or **how,** but Lapis definitely didn’t agree **with** her body when her heart crashed skidded into her throat and added a few extra degrees to the skin of her neck. Hastily she tore her gaze away, palm digging into her temple as she stole her way onto her feet. “Probably. With our _ luck _the raiders could have checked there, too.”_

_“But we won’t know until we try!” Peridot yipped, her sorrows quickly forgotten in favor of scrambling up to stand on the dock with Lapis. “Take me to your leade-- ehm, automatic parts shop!”_

_Lapis stopped after just a step and turned to Peridot, the confusion in her face evident to even the occasionally... emotionally unaware Peridot, who balked and quickly explained with a stammer. “...It’s an, um, extraterrestrial reference.”_

_It took up to two hours before they managed to find a fuel canister, let alone one that still had some contents to spare. Lapis was shocked to find the substance still in tact. Peridot had been diving in and out of hidden cabinets in the fourth building they had explored when she found the can. They’d been in an old hardware store that had, for the most part, been stripped bare of its constituents; but apparently, luck was looking out for them that day. They had even managed to find some tools that Peridot sinsted would make reviving the engine a little more bearable._

_Now they were jogging back out to the motorboat, Peridot juggling their found gadgets in her arms as Lapis mindfully carried over the gas canister. “Where do I pour it in?”_

_“There,” Peridot pointed up to some wild contraption by the cylinders, and Lapis eyed the device doubtfully before following Peridot’s instruction and uncapped the canister. “Even by technology standards twenty years ago this model is old, it lacks the funnel system other engines would have,” Peridot continued as Lapis filled the fuel tank, up until the canister was only spitting out tiny droplets of the foul-smelling stuff. “Okay. Now what?”_

_“Now I come in with **this.** ” Peridot jumped in beside Lapis, a wrench clasped readily in her hand. Lapis wisely _decided _take a cautious step back, the back of her hands pulled up to her chest, having noticed the manic smile on Peridot’s lips. “Watch and learn.”_

_Lapis didn’t even know what to think when Peridot set to work. She couldn’t even tell if she had actually used the wrench or not, with how awkwardly she jerked to get from one part of the outboard to another. She was definitely… well, possibly making progress, at least, judging from the sounds the engine was making whenever Peridot would toy with it._

_She’d ended up laying on her back on the pier, staring thoughtfully up into the dusty blue sky (about Peridot, about Centennia? About what she would do when she was done with Homeworld’s charge?) when she heard the sound of something old and dirty gruesomely sputtering to life. She quickly scrambled onto her knees and gawked at Peridot, who was sitting in the back of the boat, hands balled into tight fists at her chest._

_“It **works**!” Peridot cackled, pumping her fists up into the air and causing a strained roar to emit from the engine as she pulled the ripcord with. She yelped and let the valve go, beaming up at Lapis as she scrambled over to carefully step into the vessel._

_“You actually did it!” Lapis gaped._

_“What? Is that doubt I’m hearing?” Peridot looped her arms together across her chest, tilting her chin up in a decidedly imperious manner. “I can’t believe you. You should know that I’m very handy with machinery by now.”_

_“I honestly thought it was all talk.”_

_“ **Lapis**! I’m wounded.”_

_“But hey,” Lapis rose her hands in surrender, smiling as she slid into the singular seat by the wheel. “I believe you now.” She turned her eyes down to the_ controls, _and frowned. The motorboat was kind of like a car, right? If you turned the wheel, it would turn, yeah? She hadn’t driven a car in ages, but, once she began she knew it would be easy to remember where to go from there. “So… how do I make it_.. _Go?”_

_“Go?”_

_“As in, pull out of the docks.”_

_“Oh!” Peridot jumped up from the back, closing the few feet of distance between them. “Oh, I see. I need to unlock the motor position-- the propellor isn’t even moving.”_

_Some hidden part of Lapis commented wryly on how she could have easily told her from the_ back, _but instead chose to stand behind her. The thought dissipated as quickly as it came because Peridot was prompt to return back to the outboard, doing something with the lever that jutted out from the engine and suddenly, there was motion. It was creaky, sputtering, and definitely not smooth motion, but they began to slowly clip through the noisy waters surrounding them._

_Lapis’ eyes were huge as they began to part from the dockside, spinning around to face Peridot before her eye caught something stretching out between them and the pier. “Oh-- **shit,** Peridot, the rope!”_

_“Got it!” Peridot rushed to the side, ripping the pocket knife that Lapis had given her a few days prior out from her jacket pocket and slicing through the hoary tendril. They tore out from the river port, Lapis manning the steer to prevent them from crashing into any other boat. She could feel the machine shivering beneath her, and the engine was making a noise that even she knew wasn’t healthy... but by the stars, they were actually moving!_

_“This is incredible!” she breathed, throwing an arm up into the air to feel the crisp, generous wind as they broke out into open water. Cool spray spurted hungrily up from where they spliced waves, reminding Lapis of the sensation of a fine mist on a winter morning. It was… liberating._

_“Imagine what it would be like to just be able to drive one of these things for miles,” Lapis romanticized as she leaned back, relishing in the sensation of the choppy_ vapour _showering her face. “Without the worry of raids… Homeworld… infected…”_

_“It would be difficult to upkeep,” Peridot observed from the back. Lapis’ brow furrowed. “Yeah. And I don’t want to have to hunt down gas every time it gets low... “ She sank into the seat. “It’s a… dream for another time. Not this one. The time before all.. this.” She waved vaguely out to the clouds. “Like you said, where the biggest thing people had to worry about was winning some silly canoe race.”_

_“Hey, **one** , it’s not silly, it was a pivotal point in the Camp Pining Hearts novel series,” Peridot objected, causing Lapis to snort with laughter, “and two… if you really want to, I’m sure that the engine has enough fuel to keep going for a little while.” At Lapis’ confused look, Peridot smiled knowingly. “We don’t have to cross immediately.”_

_Lapis couldn’t help the sunny feeling that bloomed within her as she leaned over, stretching her arm out over the edge of the boat to skim her fingers over the rippling water below. She even leaned up a few times and experimentally flicked some drops at Peridot, who startled, but good-naturedly smirked back and stuck her tongue out. Lapis laughed._

_It was easier to forget about the bad things clogging her mind when Peridot was around to provide a respite she didn’t know she needed until she was already smiling because of something Peridot had said or something she had done._

_Lapis swept a furtive peek over her shoulder at Peridot. The wind whipped through her thick head of hair, and mildly Lapis wondered if Homeworld had ever given her hell over the zany locks. Then again, many of Homeworld’s Quartz legions grew their hair out as a sign of invulnerability (why they thought it represented that, Lapis would never know. That was what Jasper had said)._

_Lapis frowned, the garish image of her former affiliate making her skin prickle with ice. She had been with Peridot for up to a season navigating across the country to Centennia, and this was the first time she had noticed herself really… dwelling, or even letting herself drop as low as to think of Jasper. Peridot was a diversion from that baneful state of mind; it was… almost soothing, to have someone to help tune it all out._

_She didn’t like thinking of Peridot as just a distraction, though. That thought didn’t sit right with her. She’d grown… partial to her. While she hadn’t been won over fully, she was beginning to realize she wasn’t as keen as she had been_ originally _to be rid of her once they reached the lab. What would she do with herself_ afterwards _? She highly doubted Homeworld would return her to Delmarva for completing the mission. Where would she go?_

_Lapis realized she’d been looking at Peridot throughout this whole tangled thought process only when Peridot returned her thoughtful gaze, face soft as her lips parted to speak. Then her face paled thirty shades and she wildly flailed her arms, eyes blown huge behind her lenses as she pointed to something over Lapis’ shoulder. “ **Boat!** ”_

_“What?” Lapis startled, jerking out from the chair and following Peridot’s gesture to the right, where from the other side of the river, a boat was speeding towards them and closing distance fast. Immediately her hands flew to the wheel, jerking their vessel hard to the left, sending up a wall of turbulent water as they tumbled across the hull._

_And, it was at that moment their engine decided to, simply, detach from the back of the boat._

_Neither of them noticed (since Peridot had fled up the boat to cling to Lapis at the wheel as soon as the hull had crashed back down into the waves again) until Lapis felt that their speed had dramatically decreased in a matter of seconds. She twisted around, face slack with shock when she could not see the outboard engine that was very much the only thing keeping them and that encroaching vessel apart._

_“Fuck,” Lapis huffed, wriggling her way out of Peridot’s scrambling grip before flying to her bag, digging out a pistol for herself and, after a brief moment of consideration, handed her second to Peridot. “Can you shoot?”_

_“ **What?!”**_

_“Do you know how to use it!”_

_“Wh-- **yes!** Yes! Maybe!"_

_“Good,” Lapis stood tall as the boat slowed over the choppy waters, and watched with hard eyes as the unfamiliar boat careened towards them. It minded them from a generous distance, before slowly circling in once its inhabitants realized that they were not soldiers._

_Peridot fumbled with the handgun given to her before rising up beside Lapis, pallid face taut with stress as they both rose their weapons, and aimed for the incoming adversaries._

  
  


The Centennia laboratory was deeper and more complex than Lapis could ever have imagined. She was not exactly grateful for Topaz’ seemingly abrupt change of heart, abandoning the loyalist regime that Homeworld so strictly encoded for its militia branch, but instead she was relieved she would not need to disclose Peridot’s location alone.

They twisted in and out of corridors, traversing down long, ominous walkways contaminated by the scent of stale, trapped air. The source of the darkness blighting the ward was undefinable, draped over walls like a tapestry wrapped in shadow. The only source of light now seemed to be the tactical lights clipped onto the cold barrel of Topaz’ rifle.

Eventually they did make it into an open foyer space, where a wall of mirrors revealed the world beyond. Dusk had settled over the earth, painting the sky a deep, swollen shade of scarlet. Bruised indigo streaks reached hungrily across the expanse, keen to wreak darkness upon the land and eradicate what little natural light was being shed.

Topaz stiffly lowered the head of her rifle, turning towards Lapis. She was encased in the deep, striking red of the sunset. “She is down this hall, and will be in a right-wing ward with a red marker. You will find her there.”

Lapis heard herself sigh into the inside of the helmet, the breath billowing the already gauzy visor as she turned her eyes up to the guard. “Are you sure?”

Topaz nodded, but not before gesturing to Lapis’ head expectantly. “I would like that back.”

“. . Right.” Lapis hauled the helmet off, grimacing when a few stray threads of hair were pulled along with it. She handed it off to Topaz, who glanced behind her at the empty corridor from which they had come. “You do not have much time. Go.”

Lapis nodded briskly, turning to pelt off down the sunset-coloured hallway, but stopped short when she saw a silhouette standing menacingly in the doorway to the right wing passage.

“ _What_ are you doing?” Aquamarine’s irascible voice clipped into the heavy silence of the foyer, dripping with a venom that caused Lapis to instinctively reach for her pistol.

Topaz stepped forward. “Aquamarine, I can explain--”

“Well I certainly _hope_ that you can,” Aquamarine growled, directing a gloved hand in the direction of Lapis. “Why is _she_ here? And why is she still _breathing?_ ”

“I’m here for Peridot,” Lapis retorted, eyes narrowing as Aquamarine surged into the hall, her shoes clicking forebodingly along the linoleum floor.

“And why, _exactly_ , have you returned for her?” Aquamarine scolded with a tut. “The last I was informed, you were all _too_ keen to have her off your hands.”

“They _took_ her before I could say _goodbye!”_

Aquamarine’s eyes widened. “Is _that_ what this is about? You just want to say goodbye to your newest _plaything_?”

It took all the self-restraint that Lapis had not to charge Aquamarine as Topaz took over, stepping forward with a wavering complexion. “You know that it is a lost cause as much as I do. Allowing her to live will not harm Homeworld or its mission. To help them to escape--”

“No! _Nobody’s_ escaping!” Shrilled Aquamarine, who reached behind her, and from her weaponized person revealed a long, dark baton. Lapis furrowed her brows, disbelieving. What chance did Aquamarine have with that thing? She wasn’t tall enough to land a hit on any place that really mattered, when it came down to keeping Lapis breathing.

“What are you going to do?” Lapis challenged, pointing her handgun directly at Aquamarine’s forehead.

“Oh, no. Lazuli, I’m afraid the question is what are you going to do?” Aquamarine slyly smiled, tossing her hands, and thereby her baton, behind her back. “Are you going to _shoot me_ and alert the entirety of Homeworld’s militia force of your whereabouts? And _therefore_ possibly destroy _any_ feasible chance you might have at rescuing that little _friend_ of yours?”

Lapis faltered, her iron grip on the weapon faltering as a tremor rocked the length of her arm. Aquamarine was right. “I- **_agh!_ ** ”

Lapis choked on whatever she had been about to say, because the top of Aquamarine’s baton had abruptly shocked to life, and before Lapis could react, it was shoved directly into her abdomen. Lapis’ body came rigid with shock as erratic volts of electricity ricocheted up her body, and she crumpled down to the cold tile.

Her jaws gaped helplessly as Aquamarine hovered distastefully over her, lips pursed in a mockingly pitiful fashion. “Now, look. See what you’ve made me do? I just _hate_ to act on the offensive, don’t you know? It’s unseemly.” The tiny woman settled her cold, dark eyes onto Topaz, who was standing stiffly to one side, hands pulled into shaking fists at her side. “And you. What do you plan to do should Homeworld learn of your disloyalty? I’m sure they’d _love_ to hear how you assisted in the _illegal_ abduction of Peridot Castillo from government custody. I wonder, what sort of repercussions would wait for you there?”

“...Rehabilitation?” Aquamarine tiptoed delicately around the struggling woman on the ground, her baton shooting out to send another electric blow into Lapis’ side. Lapis’ teeth ground together as a soundless cry screamed through her teeth.

“Imprisonment?” Another shock followed by another silent scream.

“Or perhaps, the most likely candidate of all...“ Aquamarine stopped beside Lapis’ trembling shoulders, regarding Topaz with the complacency of a master who knew it had chained up its misheaved mutt for the last time. At breakneck speed, she jabbed out her arm and tucked the inactive taser into the spot between Lapis’ shoulder blades.

“Execution.”

Lapis’ back curled with anguish as a fresh electric current permeated through the skin and soaked into her muscles, seeping into her bones and causing her vision to swim with dark crimson.

“We can return to Homeworld and forget this ever happened,” Aquamarine settled at last, removing her baton from Lapis’ as Topaz took a cautious step backward. “Just make sure that she does not leave this room _alive_.”

Lapis’ fists curled in on themselves, her fingernails digging so tightly into the calloused skin of her palms that blood had begun to well. It was nothing compared to the pain that ran like tongues of flame over her back; she was halfway convinced that her clothes had caught flame from Aquamarine’s taser, but she was hesitant to roll onto her back to snuff the flame should she do the aggravated, burned spot between her shoulders any more damage.

Her shoulders shuddered with fatigue as she tried to pry herself up off the floor but to no avail. Her bleary gaze found Topaz’ larger form hovering directly before Aquamarine’s, their words lost on her words as her rapid heartbeat flooded every cognizant part of her until it was all she could hear, feel, and think.

Lapis could only feel the vibrations in the floor as Topaz stepped towards her, and was unable to contain her cry of torment as she was lifted up by the shoulders, agonizing fire racing up and down her back as her muscles jolted and twitched from the exertion. She was only able to make out Topaz’ blurry contour before she felt the ground beneath her feet again, and was startled even in her daze to find the guard spin around, stealing her rifle from her thigh and slamming the butt of the firearm directly into Aquamarine’s waiting temple.

The tiny commander was unable to even utter a gasp as she buckled and fell chin-first to the ground, a dark, oppressive welt forming from where Topaz’ firearm had collided.

“ ** _Go,_** ” Topaz’ voice cut through the film muffling Lapis’ eardrums. “ ** _Go!_ ** ”

Lapis heaved into action, the world spinning all around her as she stumbled around, foregoing her backpack in favor of keeping herself upright as she charged into the right wing, pistol wedged protectively in her hand.

  
  
  


_Lapis’ foot tapped impatiently that the grate floor of the catwalk as Pearl returned from the other side of the warehouse after depositing Peridot into the interrogation lobby._

_Three days ago, a band of scouting Crystal Gems had happened upon Lapis and Peridot while caught in the middle of the Ol’ Man River and had taken them both into custody. Among them had been Pearl, as well as two other women, an older man, and a young boy; the latter of which had been the most amicable to Lapis and Peridot since their arrival at the Crystal Gem central headquarters._

_It was truly baffling to Lapis to be given quarters to rest in while the Crystal Gems divulged what they could from Peridot. After learning that she had been a constituent in Homeworld’s boarding institute program, the Crystal Gems had been keen to glean what inside information they could from Peridot. Peridot, at first, had been hesitant to reveal anything to the group she had only ever heard damning things about. Lapis didn’t blame her, either. She wasn’t exactly partial to the Crystal Gems, either, though for an entirely different reason._

_However, after a deep, in-depth discussion with Lapis regarding all of the horrible things Homeworld had done to herself and to others like her, including the nitty, gritty details of the devastating Malachite project, Peridot was more enthusiastic on letting some information go. Hence, they had taken her into a spare stock room in the warehouse near the outskirts of the Crystal Gem base, which was really a suped up hydroelectric dam they had come to employ as a humble power source._

_“Well?” Lapis inquired, brows raising high as Pearl finally reached her on the raised metal platform. “Did she agree to tell anything?”_

_“Yes, she’s_ telling _all right,” Pearl revealed with a strained half-smile. “Telling very Homeworld analyst in the room that they’re a clod for not realizing some things sooner.”_

_Lapis’ nose scrunched with amusement imagining it, and she swore for a moment she could hear Peridot’s nasally voice reproving the Crystal Gem interrogators from here. Pearl stiffly led Lapis out of the facility, encouraging her to return to her quarters while Peridot was handled._

_For the first time in a long time, Lapis felt the dull ache of loneliness settle into her chest as she waited mindlessly in the confines of the provided room. How long would they keep Peridot for? Lapis knew from personal experience that Peridot had the ability to talk any day away, and grimaced at the thought of being trapped in this limited space without he-- someone else in the vicinity with her._

_Some unseen force must have heard her absent-minded prayers because a rapping came at the metal door. Lapis blinked from her spot on the stiff comforter she’d been provided, leaning over the edge as the door was pried open and the young boy from the boat rescue stepped in. He carried a tray of sandwiches and his ample cheeks were bright with friendliness. “Hi, Lapis!”_

_“Hi, Steven.” Lapis visibly relaxed knowing it was him rather than any other wily member of the Crystal Gems. Of the ones she had met, they all had loud and_ colourful _personalities, so unlike the cold, stoical_ characters _one would come across in a region governed by Homeworld. Steven, by far, had proven to be the most congenial of the Gems, taking the time to talk to Lapis, and occasionally Peridot (whenever the Gems hadn’t stolen her away for one thing or another)._

_“Amethyst told me they’re talking to Peridot right now,” the boy gave a wan smile as he sat down in one of the folding chairs opposite Lapis, dropping the tray on the simple steel table. “Did she seem scared?”_

_“...No,” Lapis admitted, sliding off of the bed and moving over to join Steven. “She seemed alright with it after I told her everything.”_

_Steven’s head tilted carefully. “Everything?”_

_“Everything that Homeworld has done.” Lapis shifted, drawing her knees up onto the edge of the chair with her. “To me, to everyone else. Homeworld is not the way it used to be. They’ve managed to create and do things that I can’t even understand.” Her scowl deepened as she recalled the plots Peridot had revealed that Homeworld had already begun to undertake. “I don’t understand why the Crystal Gems want to use it all against Homeworld, it’s not like they don’t already know what they’re planning.”_

_Steven leaned back, kicking his sandaled feet (Lapis hadn’t seen sandals in forever, she noted with a muted twitch of amusement) off the ground. “Garnet says that they’re going to use it to better understand_ Homeworld, _before they do anything. She says… people are suffering because of them.”_

_“Dying because of them,” Lapis muttered absently but quickly adjusted the blunt remark when she caught Steven’s troubled glance. “I’m beginning to think there isn’t a single thing on earth that can stop them. I heard two years ago that Homeworld is becoming a global power-- if we try to stand up to them, it will only lead to devastation.”_

_Homeworld had found her after five years of reclusion. If they could find her, one of the most elusive and fugitive characters to rove the city_ streets, _and manipulate her into doing their bidding, she didn’t imagine there was much else they couldn’t do. By sheer numbers alone, they could easily invade and mow this base into the ground before any Crystal Gem could put up a fight._

 _Lapis glanced up at Steven, finding the boy’s dark, consolatory gaze resting on her. “Well… maybe something good will happen. You never know, especially not until you try. That’s what my dad tells me a lot. Besides-- if we’re stuck thinking that all this is going to be for nothing, we’d never get anything done!” Lapis was carefully listening, eyes stuck to the boy who was more knowledgeable than any person she’d ever met at such a young age. “We have hope that things can get better._ That things _will get better! Which is why the Crystal Gems are doing what they’re doing.”_

_Lapis glanced sideways, Steven’s words ringing in her head like alarm bells. But they weren’t the type to send one away in a tizzy, trying to escape from harm’s way; they had the harsh, raucous appeal of an obscure wake-up call._

_“Oh!” Steven glanced up, eyes bright, hands flying to the tray and picking up one of the sandwiches resting on the platter. “Here, have one! My dad made a few extras and I figured you’d like one!”_

_Lapis blinked with astonishment, dispersed her thoughts and accepted the sandwich with delicate fingers. “Is this actual bread?”_

_“Well, yeah,” Steven nodded, taking a sandwich for himself and taking a thoughtful nibble. “We have a big farm up the hill, protected against infected! There’s wheat, corn, potatoes, lettuce… a few other plants I don’t know the name of…”_

_Lapis chuckled, taking a bite of her own, relishing in the unfamiliar, but pleasant, texture and tastes. It was certainly a leg up from canned goods._

_“Steven!” An unfamiliar voice called out from elsewhere in the dormitory, causing them both to jolt up with surprise. “Steven, c’mon, buddy, these_

_“Oh, shoot! That’s Bismuth-- she must be looking for me. Um--” Steven scrambled off of his chair, hiking it up to the door, hand flying to grasp the handle before he paused, looked over his shoulder, and spoke. “Hey, Lapis?”_

_She looked up. “When you come back, we should hang out more!” Steven beamed, waved a kindly farewell then slid out the door, clicking it gently shut behind him before the fading sounds of small feet pattering along metal gradients revealed he had truly gone. Lapis was left staring at the door, conflicted._

_“...When I come back?” She whispered to the cool, empty air of the room, fingers digging into the soft bread of her sandwich. Why would she come back? Staying here like was like a permanent reminder that the Crystal Gems were trivial in comparison to Homeworld’s forces; all it would take is a single legion to decimate them._

_But Steven’s kindness left a warmth in Lapis that she didn’t want to discredit so swiftly, not in the name of blind fear._

_She ended up finishing her sandwich, returning to drape across the modest bed frame. She must have dozed off because she startled awake to turbulent hollers and shouts, followed by the chaotic sounds of bodies rushing past her room door. She jumped back to the wall when her door slammed open, and an unfamiliar woman leered in, features hard with conviction. “Look alive, blue, we’ve got trouble.”_

_“Trouble?”_

_“Bandits!” A bellow from down the facility sent the nameless Crystal Gem crashing back down the hall, leaving Lapis’ door ajar. Lapis hastened towards her bag and threw it over her shoulder, retrieving her pistol from her hip holster and gingerly crawled towards the entrance. A spare glance outward revealed that the party had moved elsewhere, but she caught stray voices lingering below the rafters._

_“Where’d they go?”_

_“I don’t know! What do they **want** from us, they were here **just** last week--”_

_“Alexandrite said they were heading for the warehouse.”_

_The warehouse. Lapis was already bolting down the rafters, ignoring the confused barking from the Crystal Gems below her as she raced to the designated site. That’s where Peridot was. From what she had seen when she was with Pearl, the security was minimal. Peridot didn’t have Lapis’ pistol. She upbraided herself for not lending her something, anything to defend herself with._

_Lapis broke free of the dormitory, watching the chaos unfurl outdoors as Crystal Gem fighters frenzied the area, some barely giving her a second glance while others shouted questioningly after her as she plunged towards the warehouse at the other side of the dam._

_By the time Lapis burst in through the flimsy doors of the unit, the unit was flooded with Crystal Gems and bandits. She extended her pistol at arm’s length, stealing her way around the battling fray as she rushed up the steps leading up to wall along the catwalk where Peridot’s interrogation room was. She couldn’t hear anything from within, and swallowed thickly, hoping that whatever reckless party was invading the base hadn’t gotten there before she had._

_A shrill shriek from below stopped her in her tracks, and she slammed herself onto the catwalk railing to bore down upon the warring groups below. She **knew** that voice. It was **hers.** And she was **screaming.**_

_Lapis practically flew down the catwalk, leaping from the last six steps and catching herself in a heavy roll over the concrete floor of the warehouse. By that_ point _the grating squalls had mutated into desperate pleading, and Lapis followed the sounds through the din until she happened upon the scene._

_Peridot was cornered between two tall walls of crates, the Crystal Gem guard that had been guiding her along the wall of the facility to safety limp on the ground as a tangle of invaders pressed in on the yelping blonde. Said blonde seemed to catch a second wind, though, and her imploring turned into verbal sabotaging, face drawn into a hardened scowl as she told off her assailants._

_“Yeah? What are you **clods** gonna do, huh? Get me while my literal guard is down? That’s rich and unfair!” Peridot’s eyes roamed over the shoulder of the third _ bandit, _and spotted Lapis slowly crawling forward, her pistol positioned for the small of their back. Lapis silently willed Peridot to keep the bandits distracted so she could take them down from behind. “Hah! **Yeah!** I’ve got nothing you want, aside from a brilliant personality and an even **more** brilliant mind!”_

_Lapis dug the barrel of her pistol into the nearest bandit’s back, shooting at an angle that would plunge the bullet deep into their body instead of straight through. The shot alerted the other bandits to her presence, but before they could react Lapis had twisted around the first falling body and pulled the trigger on the second, pitching a bullet through their unsuspecting forehead._

_The last bandit remaining took a wary step backward, handgun slung incisively down by their side as they sized Lapis up. In an instant the gun was thrust upward, aiming for her. Lapis sucked in a sharp gasp through her teeth as she twisted out of the range of fire, wincing when the bullet whizzed perilously close to her ear. She glanced up, eyes huge when she saw-- as if in slow motion-- the barrel of the gun angling for Peridot next._

_Lapis vaulted forward, her own pistol outstretched and pulling the trigger, just as a second piercing gunshot rattled her eardrums._

_Pain blossomed, hot and perilous, through Lapis’ abdomen as her legs crumpled beneath her. Her hands flew down to her_ stomach, _and came back coated with red. Her head swam._

_“ **Lapis!** ” Fabric scuffled by Lapis’ ears, but her heart was beating too viciously in her eardrums to be able to focus on the alien sound. She could feel hands frantically jolt at the labels of her jacket, before letting go as a muted, petrified gasp reached Lapis’ ears._

_The last thing Lapis remembered were enormous, tearful green eyes boring down at her before the dark red wind of anguish stole her consciousness away._

 

 

Lapis’ vision swam as she pelted down the ward passageway, eyes frantically scanning the asymmetrical grey doors for the distinctive red marker that would set it apart from all the rest. The marker that meant _she_ was in there.

The end of the hall was approaching fast, and Lapis hadn’t seen a single speck of colour in the hall aside from the leftover bleed of sunset reaching in through soiled windows. She chastised herself for trusting Topaz, but didn’t give herself too much grief over it; she had punched Aquamarine’s lights out, after all.

Lapis swallowed hard and slammed to a halt at the end of the hall, every fiber of her being throbbing with dismay. She spun around, feverish eyes scanning the doors visible from where she stood. She stiffened when she saw a dip in the wall, and rushed back to find a stairway leading up a hidden corridor she had not seen before.

She bolted up the steps, teeth gnashing as fresh waves of pain raced across the top of her back, before stumbling up onto the second floor, boots stomping down the eerily quiet hall. Then Lapis saw the indicative red marker positioned outwards by a set of dual doors, and sprinted, twisting her body to ram full-force into them.

The doors flew open, smashing into the adjacent walls supporting them, and drew her weapon at the first terrified, masked face she saw.

 

 

_Freshly sprouted dandelions bowed beneath the weight of Lapis’ feet as she glided through the field, Peridot fast in tow. The afternoon air was mellow with the promise of rain, a sullen overcast of yellowed clouds swarming the once-clear sky._

_It hadn’t been long since the two had departed from the Crystal Gem base upon the brink of spring. After Lapis had received a gunshot to the stomach during the raid, they had no choice but to remain with the Crystal Gems while she had been cared for by their infirmary ward. Peridot had practically been joined at the hip with Lapis since she had gone unconscious during the clash with the raiders, refusing to leave her side until Lapis deemed that she didn’t need the smothering._

_It was both Steven’s and Peridot’s insistence that had coaxed Lapis into waiting out the winter; to venture out into the wilderness with nothing more than a week’s worth of medications with a wound that could easily become infected without the proper treatment… it wasn’t a risk that Lapis was willing to take._

_Once she had recovered enough to perform basic manual labor, Garnet--the de facto “leader” of the Crystal Gems-- had assigned her and Peridot to the farm uphill from the dam. Steven had been accurate when he described the location was remote and protected, giving Lapis and Peridot a domestic place to remain while they waited out the cold winter months. They had even been given a small, ginger farm dog Steven had affectionately called Pumpkin, who had been less than happy to see them depart when spring finally arrived. Lapis would remember the kindness and… semi-hospitality of the Crystal_ Gems, _and she would remember Steven’s bottomless compassion even more._

_Lapis grunted as she clambered along a craggy outcrop of earth, teeth grinding with frustration when her abdomen furled in on itself from the exertion. Peridot was on her in a heartbeat, brows furrowed with concern as she grabbed Lapis’ shoulder. “You okay?”_

_“Yeah,” Lapis murmured, a shaky exhale spilling from her lips as she leaned against a boulder. “I’m really beginning to miss the plains of the Midwest. It was so much easier to travel when you didn’t have to cross mountains.”_

_Peridot’s lips pursed pensively. “But it also left us more exposed to ambushes. We’re not exactly in the safest location right now, either.”_

_Lapis pushed herself off of the boulder and winced when her abdomen ached. Her wound still liked to give her occasional grief, undoubtedly a consequence of exposure to the cold during the most pivotal times of the healing process. Today it was especially troubling, stealing her breath away with sudden aches and minute flashes of pain. Finally, after an hour of endless travel, she decided to give in. “Do you think we could stop soon? I think the rain that’s coming is making my stomach hurt.”_

_“Your wound?” Peridot’s voice was timorous. Lapis nodded, teeth tucking into the flesh of her lower lip as she gently rolled up the hem of her shirt to reveal the bandaged site. There was no red spotting to suggest it had reopened (as it hadn’t in a long time), but the ache was becoming unbearable. Peridot hummed, grabbing softly at Lapis’ hand and guiding her alone a less terraneous decline. “ **Hmm**. The barometric pressure tends to drop before a storm arrives; it causes the tissues to swell, especially on the site of an old injury. We should rest until the storm is over.”_

_Lapis only nodded mutely, silently grateful for Peridot’s everlasting mindfulness, as she allowed Peridot to lead her down. The two of them descended the rock-studded slope, eventually entering into the low-lying grove of cedar trees at the foot of the hill. Peridot located a small hollow shrouded with large ferns and shrubs to shelter in with a rocky overhang, leaving Lapis to rest against the limestone cleft as she made rounds about the site to secure their safety._

_Lapis’ mind was reeling as she stared at the hand Peridot had held to lead her to this covert place. Her tan skin pricked and tingled where her small fingers had nestled between her own, leaving behind a warmth that strangely had Lapis craving more of. Her heart winced to think of Peridot, of what she would do once they did get to Centennia. She’d become so… used to her, having her around to depend on and protect, and vice versa._

_Lapis’ throat tightened when she remembered an occurrence four days ago, where Peridot had valiantly stood up to a horde of infected while Lapis was downed, having aggravated her injury, and had held them off while Lapis scrambled to safety. Their dynamic had been built on the foundation of a mission, a charge… but now?_

_Lapis was beginning to wonder if she even wanted to hand Peridot off anymore. Her brain rationalized yes, to remove Homeworld from her heels… but her heart, it plucked a different tune._

_The crunching of vegetation stirred Lapis out of her thoughts, and she glanced up to find Peridot lowering herself into the hollow, cheeks flush with excitement as she hid both hands behind her back. “Perimeter is all clear!” She chirped as she crawled into the shelter and crouched in front of Lapis, green eyes glittering with the spirit of inquiry. “You won’t believe what I found just near the hollow.”_

_“Does it have to do with whatever you’re hiding behind your back?” Lapis mused, eyelids half-mast as she cheekily tried to sneak a glance around Peridot’s shoulder. Peridot jerked away, her knowing smile cracking into a full-out grin. “You have to guess!”_

_“Fine. Um, a bird’s nest? Please tell me you didn’t steal a bird’s nest.”_

_“What? No, keep guessing!”_

_“Acorns.”_

_“Nope.”_

_“A frog?”_

_“Colder…”_

_Lapis sighed and leaned her head back against the limestone, already growing weary of humoring Peridot’s guessing game. “What did you find, Peridot?”_

_Peridot snickered, lowering herself onto her bottom to sit directly opposite Lapis. She wiggled her arms, before throwing them out in front of her, showing Lapis what she had found. “Ta-da!”_

_Clasped proudly in Peridot’s hands were two apples, pale red with sweet-green speckles. Lapis shuffled up, a hand outstretching to curiously take one, rolling the smooth fruit in her palms, bewildered. “You didn’t steal it from the dam?”_

_“I resent that,” Peridot sniffed, proudly tilting up her chin. “I even fell out of the tree trying to pick them just now! The trees changed and I noticed there was something red in the trees, so naturally, I went to investigate. Lo and behold, apples!”_

_“Wow,” Lapis murmured, brushing her thumb over the brindled fruit. She wasn’t sure what to do to check if it was immature or over ripened, but at this_ point _she didn’t mind if it was a little bit of either. She tucked her teeth into the fruit, ripping off a piece. Tartness flooded Lapis’ mouth and she lightly_ grimaced, _and saw the same reaction on Peridot’s face as she bit into hers._

 _“It’s tart,” Peridot confirmed with a scrunched_ nose, _but didn’t sound too dissuaded as she went in for a second nibble. “But bearable. Do they all taste like this?”_

_“No, only the ones that aren’t ripe yet,” Lapis noted with bemusement. “It’s still good, though!”_

_“I could have at least tried to find a pair that_ were _ready to be picked,” Peridot grimaced, eyeing the green-tinged flesh of the inside of her apple._

_“You had no idea how to tell,” Lapis forgave, but felt her heart sink when Peridot’s dejection persevered. Her jaw worked helplessly for a moment before she leaned forward, reaching for Peridot’s free hand and cupping it in her own. “Hey. It’s okay.”_

_Peridot blinked down at their joined hands, face unreadable as Lapis’ heart sung worriedly in her chest. “I just want you to be okay,” Peridot breathed_ wearily, _before slowly, methodical fingers twined experimentally between Lapis’ until their hands had been drawn into a warm, protective embrace. The throbbing in her abdomen gave way to an unfamiliar, but not unwelcome, weight settled in Lapis’ chest, dragging her forward, forward, **forward** , until Peridot was held only a breath away. Her heart raced, and she thought she could feel Peridot’s heart thudding in her palm._

_A distant rumble of thunder shook the earth beneath them, causing them both to startle and draw back, stealing their hands away to conceal their darkened faces. Seconds later, the telling sounds of rain beginning to splatter against the forest floor flooded the small hollowed cavern._

_Lapis swallowed hard, quivering shoulders tucked in as she tried to conceal herself in the cliff’s shadow. This was stupid, this was dumb-- they were due to enter Centennia any day now, she shouldn’t be doing **this--**_

_A familiar warmth crept over Lapis’ fingertips and she turned to see Peridot edging closer, settling her back stiffly on the wall behind them, shuffling so close that Lapis could feel the warmth beating off of her flushed skin. A tepid hand crept out, fingers unfurled as they curiously wove between Lapis’, tentative at first, but when there was no recoil, curled to hold her close._

_Neither could find the voice to say anything, anything to address the mindless, silent grief that was pulling taught at their heartstrings… but instead settled for listening to the incessant, comforting pattering of the rain together on the rocks outside._

 

 

“Don’t **fucking** move,” Lapis seethed, tasting her own blood on her breath as it oozed out between her teeth as she circled around the outskirts of the surgical room, not unlike a predator stalking its prey. The three surgeons who had been hovering around the thin metal table where Peridot laid, unconscious but untouched, had fled to the opposite wall to get as far from Lapis as possible.

“How did you get in here?” One of them choked, and Lapis immediately directed the barrel of her pistol towards the querier, causing them to shrink further back against the wall paneling. One other followed suit, clinging to the wall as Lapis followed them at gunpoint until they fled through the swinging double doors she had just come in through. The third male surgeon, however, had remained in place, and as Lapis spun back to address them, she gasped to find them charging her with a sharp pair of surgical scissors.

Lapis fell backwards, biting back a hiss of pain when her wounds grieved the motion, narrowly escaping the swinging scythe. She swung her arms high and flicked the trigger, sending a bullet straight into the surgeon’s forehead. Like a ragdoll he slumped earthward, blood welling from the fresh bullet hole and onto the cold tile below.

Lapis didn’t waste a single second as she scrambled to the wall and used it to support herself as she fumbled for balance, stumbling her way over to the metal table where Peridot was incapacitated. Frantically she undid the binds trapping Peridot’s wrists and ankles, throwing her arms beneath her calves and shoulders and heaving her up. Anguish quivered through Lapis’ lean frame as she supported Peridot in her arms, staring desperately down at the ashen, slack face hidden by a few stray locks of blonde.

She had to be alive, right? They couldn’t have operated already? Her skin was cool to the touch, and Lapis’ breath hitched as she gripped Peridot and pressed her ear to her chest. A second passed, then another, and then at **last** Lapis could hear the faint thrumming of Peridot’s heart.

“Come on,” Lapis whimpered, the sound emerging as an exhausted mewl instead of the inflexible grunt she had intended it to be. She held Peridot close to her and fled from the operating room on quaking legs.

 

 

 

 _Lapis’ arms strained against the unyielding gate preventing them from entering Homeworld’s_ Centennia _quarantine zone. Peridot was struggling alongside her, steadfast in their efforts to bust the old entryway open._

_“You’d think,” Peridot huffed as she briefly paused in their efforts, leaning against the metal gate, exasperated, “they’d at least make the effort to unlock the gates along the campus perimeter. Knowing that I’m coming, and all. We shouldn’t have to-” she gave the gate an irritated shove, only to have it rattle mockingly. “Break in.”_

_“Maybe there’s another way in,” Lapis rationalized. She knew that there had to be, as the laboratory was seated in the midst of a larger campus. The gate they had found first was_ meagre _in comparison to the large makeshift wall Homeworld had manufactured to keep out both raiders and the infected; she figured it must have been a delivery shortcut for militia vehicles to easily enter and exit the facility. By their luck, the metal plating near the_ centre _of the gate was probably hiding a lock and chain that was keeping Lapis and Peridot from entering._

_Lapis eventually gave in and settled down beside Peridot, backs to the gate as they stared at the treeline bordering the infirmary campus. “I find it odd,” she puzzled, glancing at Peridot through the corners of her eyes. “That we haven’t run into any security yet. I can’t even hear any guards on the inside.”_

_“Hmm.” Peridot’s lips pinched with consideration, turning on the spot to press an ear against the cool metal of the locked gate. “You’re right. Strange, Homeworld is very punctual with its forces, especially when armed.”_

_She spun back again, removing her glasses with a sigh and rubbing the lenses with the hem of her shirt. “I suppose they just didn’t anticipate us arriving so early.”_

_Lapis squinted and stole a glance skyward. “It’s almost the evening.”_

_“I mean so early into the season.”_

_“They expected you to arrive before winter.”_

_“Point being!” Peridot cleared her throat, shoving her glasses back over the bridge of her nose. “They should have at least had somebody waiting out_ _here_ _if they were still anticipating us arriving. Wasn’t it Aquamarine who_ pointedly _mentioned that Homeworld would be keeping close tabs on us?”_

 _“Yeah, but…” Lapis’ brow furrowed. “We haven’t run into_ any _Homeworld parties since we left Delmarva. Not even a small scouting unit. What if… they just.. forgot about us?”_

_“Forgot about us?” Peridot’s face twisted. “Unlikely. The way they handled me before delivering me to you? It was like I was some precious gemstone; which is fair, it’s in my namesake after all.” The blonde smiled smugly, but the complacent sentiment was short-lived as her face fell back into unease._

_Lapis watched on in_ a similar _spirit, her mind parting to head in a more… rebellious direction. What would they do if Homeworld **didn’t** show up? Could they just… leave? The thought was alluring, clinging like cobwebs to the forefront of Lapis’ mind as she glanced sideways at Peridot. Would she… agree to that? Would she want to just… **go?** Run away from Centennia? Homeworld?_

 _Lapis had only just opened her jaws to suggest the idea when a heavy jarring sound emitted from the gate, and the heavy metal object swung open to reveal a party of Homeworld soldiers. Lapis and Peridot stumbled simultaneously_ backwards _with astonishment, gaping up at the darkly-armored guards as the first few broke out from the facility walls._

_“ **Well,** ” Peridot huffed, straightening and wiping her sweaty hands against her jacket pockets. “About time you showed up. I was beginning to think you’d all but forgotten about our arrival.”_

_Lapis cautiously eyed the guards as they circled the both of them, faces masked behind the dark screens of their helmets. “Our?”_

_“Yes,” Peridot beamed over her shoulder at Lapis, then turned to regard the soldiers with contempt. “Our! Now, will you lot start being helpful and let us inside? It’s been a long **and** perilous journey-- all the way from Delmarva, mind you!”_

_“Our orders are to retrieve only the sterile bite victim,” the militant hovering before the open gate decreed. With nothing more than the jerk of a dark, armored shoulder, a line of soldiers marched past their commander, heading directly for Peridot._

_“Wh-- hey, **watch it!** ” Peridot spat as she was roughly lifted up from the ground by her arms, dangled high enough that her legs swung powerlessly above the ground. “ **Hey!**_ You  _ **clods,** loosen it up a bit! I’m the avatar for humanity’s cure, **remember?** ”_

 _Lapis’ jaw had fallen slack as the faceless soldiers remained unphased by Peridot’s toiling, sparing no effort to mind her words as they briskly turned and began to carry the struggling woman inside the facility. Her heart dropped_ into _her feet._

_“Wh-- **wait!** Wait a minute! Peridot!” Lapis stumbled after them, desperate for one last word with Peridot before a heavy gloved hand stopped her. Lapis sent the owner a mutinous glare, fists held taut at her sides. “You can’t just take her-- you have to let me--”_

_“Homeworld is not obligated to permit entry to any foreign body,” the guard curtly clipped. Their hands fastened around the pistol grip of their rifle, and Lapis took a wary step backward. It was a warning, she had realized._

_Regardless, she remained persistent, knuckles pale as she gestured angrily to the soldiers carrying the writhing, yelping Peridot away. “You just-- **Peridot!** ” In a single _motion _she lurched past the Homeworld guard, diving beneath their broad shoulder and making a mad dash for Peridot. The woman in question jolted in the soldier’s grappling hold, neck twisting around as the corners of huge green eyes met even larger brown ones._

 _“Lapis!” Peridot gasped, beginning to thrash even more furiously in her captor’s hold. “Hold_ on, _you clods-- let me **down!** ”_

_But the guards refused to turn to allow Peridot a moment’s respite, let alone stop to allow her to see Lapis._

_Lapis had only made it four strides when_ a second _set of soldiers promptly halted her, gripping her around the shoulder and forcing her down onto her knees. Lapis fought briefly against their harsh clasp, but suddenly her mind unable to stop the instantaneous, stunning connection between them and Lapis’ former aggressors at the Malachite project. Paralyzed by this new revelation, Lapis’ head fell to her chest as she surrendered, an icy thrill of terror seeping into the skin of her back as she was dragged away._

_Peridot’s cries echoed in Lapis’ pounding ears as the distance between them grew greater and greater. The coarse earth scraped at her legs as she was roughly tossed outside of the Homeworld facility, held at point blank by the guards responsible for her eviction. Lapis scrambled to stand, elbows grating against the hard ground before freezing as the muzzle of a rifle was directed towards her head._

_“I would think twice about retrying that stunt you just pulled,” the larger of the two guards barked,_ signaling _their counterpart to retreat back within the gates. “It’s generous enough that we didn’t shoot you in the legs for infringement on a government property.” Lapis gnashed her teeth, head shooting up to retaliate, but swallowed whatever she had meant to say when the distinctive sound of the safety mechanism being undone clicked in her ears._

_“ **Fine** ,” she spat, the word a spear through her chest that left an ache that no amount of self-consolation could ebb. The guard grunted and spun on their heel to march back into the campus, leaving Lapis stranded outside as the heavy metal gate clattered shut._

They took her, they **took** her. _The mantra recited like a siren in Lapis’ mind, growing more and more desperate with each recurring round._ They _**fucking** _ took her.

_At long last Lapis was able to find the strength to stumble up, knees quaking threateningly beneath her weight as she stared up at the daunting Homeworld gate. A surge of fury spread like liquid fire through Lapis’ blood as she charged the facility, slamming shaking fists against the metal plating. “ **Peridot!** ” She cried, repeating the name over and **over** until her voice was raw and the skin of her hands were blistering from the repetitive impact. But her efforts were to no avail._

_Her rage quickly turned to despair, then darkened into a sorrow that Lapis couldn’t even begin to comprehend as it consumed everything about her. Her hands fell to her sides and her flushed forehead pressed against the gate, defeated. A single hand rose up and pressed against the metal, palm damp with sweat as it slowly trailed down._

_She only realized her face was just as damp when she felt a hot tear spill down her left cheek._

_She was gone._

_Peridot was **gone.**_

_Lapis, after leaning against the cold, taunting gate for what could have easily been seconds but felt like hours, lethargically pulled herself away. She stared at the gate, silently willing it one last time to open to let her in, to let her **see** her._

_But the gate remained closed._

_Lapis turned away._

 

 

Escaping from the laboratory was easier than entering. Lapis had shattered a window and made her daunting escape once descending to the first level of the hospital, retreating through the fragments and into the wild Centennia mountains before Homeworld was any the wiser.

Lapis trudged up the mountainous earth with Peridot limp in her arms, determined to put as much distance between them and any Homeworld officer as possible. She only stopped to regain her bearings and her breath when the labour proved too detrimental, resting Peridot on a soft mound of mosses as she rested against the trunk of a tree near an abandoned forest trail.

Then the same group of Crystal Gems who had warned Lapis of Homeworld’s lethal intentions for Peridot emerged from the treeline, carefully crawling along the dirt path in a beat-up military vehicle. Numbly, Lapis accepted their help, lifting Peridot into the open back with her as they were carted away from the campus.

Lapis’ heart was heavy as Peridot laid strewn across the bench in the back, head tossed gracelessly across her lap as weak, weary fingers combed helplessly through thick yellow hair. The hushed voices of the Gems hidden away in the cabin of the vehicle were indiscernible to Lapis, because all of her attention was focused on the frail body in her arms.

Lapis was staring blankly at the army-green canvas encompassing them, watching the trees pass idly by through the rafts, when she felt Peridot’s weight shift on her legs. Lapis gasped and stood to attention as she watched Peridot’s features pinch with discomfort. Watery green eyes hesitantly sifted open, narrowing marginally at the unfamiliar sight before her, before rolling upwards to take the soft thing she was laying across into account. Peridot gasped when she met Lapis’ wide, weepy gaze. Her jaw went slack. “You’re… really here?”

“Hey,” Lapis smiled, unable to keep the tearful, relieved laughter from of her voice.

Peridot gawked at Lapis for a moment more, then her brows knitted with confusion. “Why am I… what happened to the lab…?”

“They…” Lapis’ throat clogged. “They weren’t able to… derive the vaccine from you.”

Peridot stared up at Lapis, eyes huge with dismay. “Was I not adequate enough for them?” She lamented, pressing a hand to her temple, and pulling it back, looking baffled. “I don’t feel any different. No surgical scars or unusual pains…”

Lapis’ lips parted, tongue twisting and turning in her mouth as she tried to tiptoe her way around the brutal truth of Homeworld’s designs for Peridot. Any falsehoods that her brain managed to manifest she shot down, however, upon seeing Peridot’s stricken, pale face staring up at her. “...They weren’t going to try to extract a cure from you,” she admitted quietly, voice feeble as she closed her eyes. “They were going to see what was causing your immunity, and… destroy it. They were going to destroy the first ray of hope humanity has seen in sixteen years, a-and-- they were going to _kill_ you, Peridot, and I-I couldn’t le--”

Lapis was stopped by a soft, stable hand that reached up to cup along the curve of her faded cheeks. Whatever words she had meant to say were pulled back into her lungs. Peridot slowly rose up and onto the bench beside Lapis, facial features penned into a mystifying mix of comprehension and inquisition.

“Why couldn’t you?” Peridot uttered quietly, face tight with earnest. “You led me here, and even after all that we’ve… been through, you knew you’d never see me again.” Peridot’s hand retracted uneasily, pulling in toward her chest.

Lapis’ heart ached despondently within her. She had yet to consider what their separation, while brief, had felt like to Peridot. She had been so wrapped up in her own grief, in the deep, primal feeling of loss that had stolen her spirit away when Homeworld had stolen Peridot. But she hadn’t-- she hadn’t even thought of how Peridot might have felt. Had she been hesitant to reach Centennia, knowing how separation was eminent? After how they had grown so close since she was marched into Lapis’ solitary base in Delmarva?

“Peridot, I…” Lapis’ voice failed her, dropping into a raw whisper as Peridot stared pointedly to the side. Lapis exhaled deeply through her nose, forcing all of her pent-up anxieties out with it. “I didn’t want to leave you. I… I’d just gotten past the gates of the ward when I felt so… _lonely_ .” Lapis bowed her head, twisting her fingers over one another. “And when I learned what Homeworld was actually going to do to you, I… I couldn’t stay away and just-- let that _happen!_ So-- I came back. For you.”

Peridot’s eyes abruptly swung back towards Lapis, revealing that stubborn tears had been collecting at their corners. “Really?”

Lapis’ chest twanged unhappily at the sight as her hands spanned outward to brush her thumb against Peridot’s cheeks, swiping away the salty pricks of moisture. “Really,” she breathed, face soft. The same emotion she had been tormented by for weeks now returned to her full-throttle, and at last, she felt she could name it: love.

She’d come to love Peridot. And… she wondered…

“Peridot,” Lapis began, mouth suddenly dry. “I-- I want to go back to the Crystal Gem base in Shomee. To the dam. But-- I want to go back, with you. Because I lov--”

Lapis didn’t even get to finish what she had been saying because Peridot had closed the distance between them in the matter of a heartbeat, chapped lips crashing against Lapis’ own and effectively rendering the stammering smuggler soundless.

Lapis was frozen in place, body rigid with shock. She warred with her body to do something, urging it to respond, and soon found solace in the fact that was soon melting into Peridot’s embrace. Her hands slid up from where they’d been stuck, gradually rising up to loop around Peridot’s shoulders. She realized that the rest of the world had fallen away, and all that Lapis could taste, hear, and _feel_ was Peridot and her embrace.

They prolonged the kiss for as long either could manage, breaking away only to take shaky, shallow breaths. No words were exchanged between them, but truly, nothing needed to be said at all in that moment. Lapis’ heart was singing in her chest, the song warm and light and so _eager_ for more.

“Hey Lapis...” Peridot broke through her reverie, voice a low, timid sound that reeled Lapis in like a moth to a flame. Small hands wound tentatively around hers, thumbs drawing circles into the back of Lapis’ palms. “Me too.”

Lapis’ eyeswidened. Her hand instinctively moved to tighten around Peridot’s, feeling warmth creep up her body and rise into her neck, the blush deepening her skin by several shades. Her lips twitched up into a shaky smile. “Do you… want to go back to Shomee with me? We can… live out on the farm, up the hill. With Pumpkin! I’m sure she’d be happy to see us again-- and-- we could…” Lapis’ jaw clamped shut, helpless, as her train of thought scattered when she saw the cheeky glimmer in Peridot’s eyes. “What?”

Peridot’s tongue swept coyly over her now _slightly_ swollen lips.  “I’ll go back to Shomee with you if you promise to _Shomee_ everything that’s out there.”

Lapis’ hand flew up to her face to muffle the giggle-snort she could feel trying to escape her as she stole her hand back from Peridot. “That was terrible. I hated it,” she giggled, but her eyes betrayed her in that she obviously found it amusing.

“Wait a minute, I’m not done,” Peridot smiled, reaching back for Lapis’ hand. “And if there’s something we need to learn, or do, or-- anything, we can do it _together_. We work the best when it’s only us, right?”

Lapis smiled a watery smile, meeting Peridot’s eyes and gave a small confirming nod.

“Only us.”

**Author's Note:**

> This initially began as a comic I wanted to make for tumblr but, lo and behold, I suck at doing art consistently and write way more than I draw, fjsdlkfdsfd. Anyways, thank you for reading! Lemme know how your heart's doin' in the comments and drop a kudos if ya think it was cool! I love The Last of Us and wanted to put a little twist on it in this fic; I'm hella excited for TLOU 2.


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